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UNIVERSITY OF N.C 


| HMA 


00028748366 


This book is due at the WALTER R. DAVIS LIBRARY on 
the last date stamped under “Date Due.” If not on hold, it may 
be renewed by bringing it to the library. 


DATE . o Babi 
DYED 12 STUBNED 


DATE 
DUE RETURNED 


Form No 573, 
Rev. 1/84 


ae 
if iy \ 


For “ith liprves / lis Lc 
Baap Fon the. (Bidah” Cbs 1 yyy 
Hi? a Bicrecweer ll Of Las We 


OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


Cr) ree oak ; thy 
Wire | ee Wt. yee are y res 4 The ' ¢ 


CORNELIA PHILLIPS SPENCER 


OLED DAYS 
IN CHAPEL HILL 


Being the Life and Letrers 
of Cornelia Phillips Spencer 


BY 


HOPE SUMMERELL CHAMBERLAIN 
With Illustrations by the Author 


CHAPEL HILL 
THE UNIVERSITY OF NORTH CAROLINA PRESS 


LONDON: HUMPHREY MILFORD 
Oxrorp UNIvEersITy PREss 
1926 


UUIVERSITY LIBRARY 
JNIVERSITY OF NORTH CARORRMA 
AT CHAPEL HILL 


mile ee 


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FOREWORD 


N BEGINNING this book my idea was to present a 

life in the round by means of authentic records more 
than usually full, and freely laid open for selection. No 
thesis, no opinion, no sentimental prepossession was to 
be the centre of arrangement. I wished also to compile 
a veracious narrative of times which are being swallowed 
up in the dark backward of the past. But as the gathered 
letters and journals of Mrs. Cornelia Phillips Spencer 
were pondered upon, a center emerged, and events were 
seen to crystallize around it. Her life was seen as an 
effort planned, and an object attained, and then the joy 
of present achievement died away into a memory which 
always turned back to what had seemed to the doer the 
best accomplishment of her life. 

This effort, this achievement, was the reopening of the 
University of North Carolina after the Civil War, and 
the life of Mrs. Spencer thus became the story of an 
institution. Its early growth, its closing, its reopening, 
its later efficiency were woven into the description of her 
own experience. This is extraordinary, for she lived 
in an era when the influence and personality of women 
was little emphasized. She had at no time any personal 
connection with the University, save that of residence 
in the village of Chapel Hill, and yet if she had not be- 
stirred herself the University would not be what it is 
today. 

To her contemporaries Mrs. Spencer always stood 
out as she is shown in her correspondence, intrinsically 
the equal in intellect and worth of any American woman, 
although she worked in a narrow room. That this gen- 
eration is losing sight of her is due mostly to the crowd- 


x FOREWORD 


ing events of that last two decades. It is a joy to restore 
the vividness of her memory—to recall her services, of 
which the real substantial fruit is being enjoyed by many 
at this present time. 

A book like this is never made by one person un- 
assisted. Beside the free access to Mrs. Spencer’s 
papers which included diaries and journals covering the 
greater part of her life, the dedication of the volume 
records the strong encouragement from Dr. D. H. Hill 
without which it would never have been written. Many 
friends have looked over their boxes of old letters. Mrs. 
Josephine Wakefield of Banner Elk, North Carolina, and 
Mrs. Agnes Johnston of Orange County, North Caro- 
lina, have sent packets of letters which were most essen- 
tial. Mrs. Spencer’s niece, Mrs. Lucy P. Russell of 
Rockingham, North Carolina, has supplied material, 
awakened memories, and assisted with the reading of the 
Spencer correspondence. Miss Cornelia Spencer Love, 
of the Library of the University of North Carolina, be- 
side committing to me the quaint little old trunk contain- 
ing the great collection of her grandmother’s papers, 
has performed the tasks of the last critical reading of the 
manuscript and of making the index. And last but not 
least, I wish to thank Dr. W. K. Boyd, of the Depart- 
ment of History at Duke University, for many sugges- 
tions, but especially for the full discussion and verifica- 
tion of all the historical allusions in this book, to which 
subject he generously gave of his time. 

HorE SUMMERELL CHAMBERLAIN 
1509 Hittsgoro STREET, 


RALEIGH, N. C. 
January, 1926. 


CO INE BIN tS 


DRIES ERIN SINGS) ao ute UM ar Ie clus ayy SNcco re IVA gigs Slate 1 
II NEIGHBORS AND THEIR CHILDREN............0000- 16 
III An Ovp-FAsHIONED EDUCATION............2.002: 28 
IV A “Younc Lapy’s” FriENpS IN CHAPEL HILL..... 37 
MOMORNELIA PHILLIPS (LOVE: STORY). 4c ile id's Wielemie glo o/s 57 
PENN DOW HOOD SU URC IMIG Ce ni Ng 69 
ee PAE OURRENDER (Gaull Heit hie eh Mil Any vT ALN SNL 80 
VIII ELreanor Swain’s Story, A ROMANCE OF 

TENS UR RENDER Cie LNT Miter aN avg Gini Baul IeiE 94 

IX THe WritTinc oF “THE Last Ninety Days or 
ie SO MTS SiO AISA GLUE A MP AE A 101 
X JourNnats anpD Letters oF 1865-1866.............. 113 
XI THe Breakinc UP oF THE OLD REGIME.......... 135 
PURE YER THE! LIISPERSTON Ws i jicie Gb Cie didiaie wlelerelelote glade 147 
XIII Mrs. SPpENcER’s FIGHT FOR THE UNIVERSITY....... 158 
MOM TINUED LLOSTILITIES 0 eo ale aad on uy, 178 
POE Re OBAN YEARS 18/1) TONLE oe od el 197 
PUN Di EAI NIVERSITY (BELL) RINGS }AGAIN. 0)... 6050 0.00% 216 
OE UEASANTT LUACES foie slile chi ivie sate aaba ace) adel dis aaom 230 
Pee OVMeETING ABOUT CHANGES 3/2 Jie ied dbs ole elslls'e aielels 246 

XIX Mrs. SpeENcER’s LITERARY TASTES AND LATER 
PE CEUNGS HU MUU Ne bats iia uneven ehie i aH InAAGN gL HORMDE NN VK 263 
ECA ATE OULM MIB S'S crc ly wystun ene ceie tel atariin igh Sal ata argh S 282 
XXI Gornc DowN THE VALLEY, ONE BY ONE.......... 301 


TERESA EO Sty LULL META ID Pare T DERE. CUS RURN BU Ne) Ten HiTMLLMDCUiy a (A 321 


AY 
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ILLUSTRATIONS 


POeNELtAv PHILLIPS SPENCER |i). 0 2 is Frontispiece 
RMA DAMIR UL OPTEARY cies cc sueie ely Wal cderare uti Mog) ahs eat aide 3 4 
EET TPS / LLOUSE! io) sos ysivie Malaka le gender ue dy bier 14 
Meret EIT LIPS SPENCER isi. ia eeciia te eeu ielulaid ao 48 
Pee SP OLUNROE, SPENCER! (00000). cc Wie scon seis Wd ule etal 60 
Be ATN TIOUSE ee UH RM TEE oat Gye 96 
EMER CLIPS fie scar ea ea ALN ae tlt 122 
BE PEFOMELT  ILOUSE) rie owiale wigle ie dec veeiata cols ana 154 
PMS ES ETE LIPS sk edn 198 
OupD SOUTH BUILDING AND THE WELL 2.000.000.0000. 214 
Meeeeis UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 2.000020. 00 ot. 236 
SOARING FOUNTAIN (i. 'c). 6s oases Mle cielel es Soule 252 
Pee eRANGE COUNTY LOG CABIN Gi eee ea 298 


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OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


I 
BEGINNINGS 


HE SUBJECT of this memoir, Mrs. Cornelia Phil- 

lips Spencer, lived in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, 
where the State University has always been. She came 
there near enough to the earliest days to hear and to 
write down the story of its first organization. This 
account is in a newspaper article published by her in 
1868, and we shall abridge it to state its main points. 

North Carolina, immediately after the end of the 
Revolutionary War, was busied as were all her sister 
colonies in setting her own internal affairs to rights. In 
the new State Constitution of that era was an article 
specifying the establishment of a State University. It 
was William R. Davie, the able young revolutionary hero 
who afterwards became Governor, who pushed this pro- 
ject, until in the year 1789, backed by his great influence, 
the necessary legislation passed the General Assembly. 
Davie was a graduate of Princeton, something of a 
scholar, and deeply interested in the cause of education. 
He was appointed chairman of the Board of Trustees, 
who rode out in the pleasant spring-time of that year to 
choose a suitable place where they might build their 
_ Institution. 

At a cross-roads in the forest that then prevailed 
over all central North Carolina, at a place where the 
main travelled road from Petersburg, Virginia, crossed 
the road from the western outposts of the Blue Ridge, 
leading drovers and their cattle to Fayetteville, North 
Carolina, the head of river navigation—at this spot these 
men halted one April day at noon. Mrs. Spencer says: 


oe OLD DAYS IN CHAPED (HTD 


They stopped at Chapel Hill to lunch, taking their refection, 
as I have been told, at the foot of the great poplar which now 
stands in the Campus. They fell in love under these benignant 
circumstances with the beauty of the spot. They resolved to 
look no further. Chapel Hill was certainly a local habitation 
and had a name before the days of the Revolution, for ruins 
of a chapel of the Church of England were plainly visible forty 
years ago, (1828) on the lot then belonging to Dr. Mitchell. 
The old tavern occupied for many years by Mrs. Nunn must 
have been a roadside inn, if not actually in Revolutionary 
times very soon after. Whatever determined the choice must 
have been fortunate. The situation is central, retired, and 
how beautiful! Its hills and groves and glades are indeed fit 
to surround the walls of an academe—beloved haunt of the 
Muses, sacred to all gentle and classic companionship. Who 
ever lived there that did not love the very air that breathes 
over it? 


After the first buildings had been built, few and 
simple, Joseph Caldwell, a New Jersey man, a graduate 
of Princeton and a Presbyterian minister, came to North 
Carolina about 1796 to lead a teacher or two in the in- 
struction of his handful of students. He was at first 
called “Presiding Professor” but was elected President 
of the University in 1804. He was a leading spirit from 
the first, meeting the vicissitudes of the little college, 
hardly established. He stood like a rock for strict dis- 
cipline in times when atheism was the fashion, and the 
uncontrolled youths who came from isolated plantations 
had to be reduced under authority. Gradually he drew 
to him a faculty which was truly respectable, and not 
inferior to any in America of that early day in its per- 
sonal quality, although very few in number. He was a 
Federalist, dignified with the stateliness that Washing- 
ton loved to maintain. He was courtly in manner and 
proud, even in that lonely hamlet. His little circle was 


BEGINNINGS 3 


isolated. The people around had not developed any cul- 
ture at all. Some of Caldwell’s faculty were leaving now 
and then for wider opportunity, among whom was Deni- 
son Olmsted from Yale College, who went from the 
chair of Mathematics at the University of North Caro- 
lina to assume the same duties at his Alma Mater. The 
President also had opportunity to better himself, but he 
remained, improving his curriculum from year to year. 

It is said by those who have studied such things that 
the little University of North Carolina under Joseph 
Caldwell was a pioneer in giving science, as then extant, 
a portion of the importance which it has lately obtained 
everywhere. Dr. Caldwell was proficient in mathematics, 
especially applied, and would have preferred teaching 
this branch to being president, but he was not allowed to 
choose. And this is where the link occurs which connects 
Mrs. Spencer’s life with the village of Chapel Hill. Her 
father became one of the early professors of mathematics 
in the University of North Carolina. 

James Phillips was born in England at Nevenden, in 
Essex, a tiny village about twenty miles north-east of 
London, on April 22, 1792. His father was Rector of 
the parish, and he had three sons of whom James was 
the youngest. When James was about seven years old 
his mother died. In 1800 his father had moved to Roche 
in Cornwall, and here married again. His eldest son 
died here, and there being children by the second wife, 
she began to be hostile to her husband’s older sons, and 
practically drove them from their father’s house. So 
permanent and so entire was the breach then made that 
neither of the brothers ever saw their father again, 
although he survived in that same living until the year 
1831. Rev. Richard Phillips was what was called an 


THE DAVIE POPLAR 


BEGINNINGS 5 


“Evangelical” in his opinions. He used the Olney Col- 
lection of hymns in his church services. He is also said 
to have been a friend, or to have belonged to the circle of 
the poet Cowper. But he passes out of sight when his 
two sons go their outward way, doubtless with anger and 
a sense of injustice rankling in their hearts. When James 
Phillips and his brother Samuel were thus forced to shift 
for themselves, Samuel Phillips entered the English navy, 
while James went to work as a clerk or book-keeper in 
the town of Plymouth, when he was about seventeen 
years old. He afterwards became a tutor, or usher, ina 
school there. 

Plymouth, situated on the eastern side of that long 
peninsula which stretches down at the south-western 
corner of England, was a most important seaport during 
the wars with Napoleon and the French. It was con- 
stantly full of soldiers and sailors with whom James 
Phillips chiefly associated. He learned military tactics 
during these war years but he did not learn dissipated 
habits. His one aim and object in life was to get an edu- 
cation. While he was teaching boys their Latin gram- 
mar he was himself studying the higher mathematics 
without a teacher. Mrs. Spencer tells how delighted 
he was as he beheld the truths of Euclid unfold to his 
mind during his solitary vigils, and how he then and 
there saw his vocation, and claimed mathematics for his 
chosen science. While he lived in Plymouth James Phil- 
lips once saw the great Napoleon himself, pacing the deck 
of the English man-of-war “Bellerophon,” just before 
he was to be conveyed a captive to St. Helena. 

When wars were over for a time in all Europe, Sam- 
uel Phillips was discharged from the navy and the two 
brothers decided to emigrate to the United States of 


6 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


America. They crossed to Le Havre and took passage 
for New York, where they arrived without adventure in 
the year 1818. 

Late in her life Mrs. Spencer mentions certain old 
copies of Homer and Virgil, Caesar and Tacitus, as hav- 
ing been brought to the United States by her father, and 
being still in her possession. By their knowledge of 
these the brothers seem to have secured immediate em- 
ployment as teachers in a boys’ school; and only a little 
more than a year later we find them in charge of their 
own private academy for boys in Harlem. Here James 
Phillips found time for more mathematical research, and 
made friends with fellow mathematicians in New York 
and vicinity. He also joined an enthusiastic mathemat- 
ical club in the city. In 1821 he married Judith, or Julia, 
Vermeule of Plainfield, New Jersey. This lady was the 
seventh child of Cornelius Vermeule and Elizabeth Mid- 
dagh. She was connected on both sides with very old 
and respected Dutch families, colonists of New Jersey 
and New York. Her brother, Rev. Cornelius Vermeule, 
was at the time of her marriage pastor of the Dutch 
Reformed Church of Harlem. This church was already 
more than a century old, and had been served, formerly, 
in 1670, by the first of the Vermeule name, recently emi- 
grated from Holland. It was at her brother’s house in 
Harlem that Julia Vermeule met her husband. The 
Middagh family antedated the Vermeules in America by 
a few years, and Julia Vermeule’s ancestry was derived 
from Holland, Belgium, and France, whence some of her 
ancestors sought refuge in Flanders on account of their 
Protestant faith. Both her grandfathers had been offi- 
cers in the Revolutionary armies. Her father went into 
the service as a private, and came out with the rank of 


BEGINNINGS Z. 


captain. Her grandfather Vermeule was a_ fervid 
patriot. In the year 17/77 he allowed a fort or block- 
house to be built upon his farm at Plainfield, and a camp 
was located there. He boarded the officers of one of 
General Washington’s regiments stationed there, never 
asking or receiving any compensation. 

At the lowest ebb of the American cause, when the 
British held New York and vicinity, Washington him- 
self often stayed at Cornelius Vermeule’s and would 
ascend the hill nearby to look out over the country, and 
spend hours of silent thought beside a great rock at the 
summit. After the Revolution, when Julia Vermeule’s 
father and mother were married, a handsome present 
was sent them by General and Mrs. Washington in recog- 
nition of the kindnesses shown him by both families dur- 
ing his campaigns in New Jersey. Mrs. Spencer says 
of her kinsfolk in one of her diary reminiscences: 


I never knew either family intimately till my mature 
life. . . . I think the Vermeules were always most religious, 
serious, thoughtful, belonging to the old Dutch Reformed 
Church. The Phillips were more worldly and pleasure-loving, 
clever and good-natured. Socially more agreeable in their way 
than the Vermeules in theirs. I would not judge either. 


Mrs. James Phillips was well educated for that time, 
and indeed for this. She had been taught Latin, French, 
and Greek, and had a most active mind and excellent 
literary taste. She wrote well. There is poetry still 
treasured which was written by her to celebrate family 
occasions. She was a reader of the most solid, thoughtful 
books. She enjoyed such difficult works as Edwards’ 
Freedom of the Will and she used her Greek Testament 
in preference to the English all her life. She was tall, 
slender, and graceful, and was different from her hus- 


8 OLD DAYS: IN CHAPRED HIEL 


band in being somewhat temperamental, while his dispo- 
sition was always equable. ) 

During the five years that Mr. and Mrs. James Phil- 
lips lived in Harlem three children were born to them, 
of whom Cornelia was the youngest. It comes with a 
little shock to those who know how the history of this 
woman belongs to the history of North Carolina, to hear 
that she was born outside the state. True it was, how- 
ever, that Cornelia Phillips was born in Harlem, New 
York, March 20, 1825. 

The story of how the Phillips family cast their lot 
with the University of North Carolina is as follows. 
Professor Olmsted was leaving the University. Pro- 
fessor Mitchell, who had been teaching mathematics, 
wished to be transferred to the Chair of Chemistry and 
Mineralogy. Dr. Joseph Caldwell, himself an enthusi- 
astic mathematician, was anxious to choose the new pro- 
fessor with care, so that the department should be built 
up. Many candidates applied, but the choice had at last 
narrowed to two, one of whom was James Phillips, 
highly recommended by Dr. Adrain of Rutgers College, 
who was a friend of Mr. Phillips, a mathematician, and 
also an old friend of Dr. Caldwell. The trustees left the 
final choice entirely in Dr. Caldwell’s hands, and he, in- 
fluenced by Dr. Adrain’s letter, decided upon James 
Phillips. Mr. Phillips was influenced in leaving a pros- 
perous school and adventuring into the unknown in far- 
away North Carolina principally by the consideration 
that he would have to teach only his chosen subject there. 
He found it tiresome to spend so many hours drilling the 
classics into the minds of beginners. When he was noti- 
hed of his selection to the Chair of Mathematics at the 
University of North Carolina he and his brother sold 


BEGINNINGS 9 


their establishment at once. Samuel also was married 
by this time. He went to western New York, and after- 
wards to Detroit, Michigan, and in old age returned to 
New York City. These brothers never saw each other 
again. 

It was during the spring of 1826 that James Phillips 
and his little family took their tedious way southward. 
No accounts of the journey survive in the family papers, 
but Mrs. Mitchell made the trip as a bride in 1819, re- 
turning with her husband to their southern home. She 
wrote a long and detailed account of this journey to her 
mother in Connecticut, and as transportation could not 
have changed very greatly in seven years, in those days 
before railroads, we will quote Mrs. Spencer’s abridge- 
ment of Mrs. Mitchell’s letter : 


Mrs. Mitchell says that they found the journey not nearly 
so fatiguing as she expected, the distance, accurately calculated, 
being 815 miles. This letter is dated January 1, 1820. She 
continues . . . From New York, on Monday morning, Decem- 
ber 20, we went to Elizabethtown, New Jersey, by boat. . . 
From Elizabethtown to Trenton by stage, and by stage again to 
Philadelphia, stopping a day there to visit the sights of the 
city . . . Thence by boat we went to New Castle down the 
Deleware River, and a stage took us to Frenchtown, where a 
steamer being in readiness . . . we were soon sailing down the 
Chesapeake on a fine moonlight night. . . . At sunrise Thurs- 
day we found ourselves in Baltimore, where we visited the 
Catholic Cathedral while breakfast was preparing. Went on 
board the boat ‘“‘United States’’ for Norfolk at nine o’clock, and 
the day being warm and pleasant we had a delightful sail to 
Norfolk. . . . We arrived at Norfolk at one o’clock on Friday, 
and finding the stage waiting we could not stay to dinner, but 
away we went eleven miles to the Dismal Swamp, where we 
entered a canal boat 20 feet in length. ’Twas sunset of a rainy 
Christmas Eve when we entered this boat, and in it we were 
drawn along for 22 miles at the rate of four miles an hour. A 


10 OUD DAY SVNGORAG ET ETT 


North Carolina gentleman on board said the Dismal was 
infested by runaway negroes, and that Christmas was always 
a holiday for the slaves, so the gentlemen judged it a prudent 
precaution to put their firearms in order. With three pistols 
on board we were to make great resistance in case of an attack 
from banditti. There being five locks and three bridges to 
pass, and it being night, we were till ten o’clock getting through 
the swamp, then instead of finding a stage ready to take us on 
to Elizabeth City, N. C., we found that the driver, being tired 
of waiting had gone off without mail or passengers. ... A 
one horse gig and a cart for the baggage being procured, our 
party walked and rode from the end of the canal to a tavern a 
few miles distant. Here we staid for the rest of the night, send- 
ing on to Elizabeth City for the stage to return for us, which it 
obligingly did, and breakfast was eaten in Elizabeth City. 
Going on to Edenton we dined there late in the afternoon of 
Saturday, which was Christmas Day . . . The steamboat from 
Elizabeth City to Plymouth had left, however, so it was neces- 
sary to go across the Albemarle Sound in an open row-boat, 
with four oars, and the water being pretty rough, and the 
boat leaking badly, one of the gentlemen bailed constantly, 
while Professor Mitchell steered . . . Mr. Mitchell commends 
my intrepidity, she continues, and thinks he will send me to sea 
as a sailor. After an uncomfortable passage of seven hours 
we touched Plymouth about sunset, Sunday, and immediately 
unpacked our trunks to dry our clothes. On Monday morn- 
ing we went to Williamston by stage, then to Tarboro’, and 
then to Raleigh. But we arrived there too late for the Chapel 
Hill stage. We hired an extra stage, and I heard Mr. Mitchell 
tell the driver to drive us well, for he was armed. He then 
whispered to me that the driver was strongly suspected of 
being a murderer, and with this comfortable assurance we 
plunged into the woods leaving all civilization apparently far 
behind us, and taking the whole day for the twenty-eight miles, 
reaching Chapel Hill December 29. 


The Phillips family may have gone by a different 
route. Their journey was in the spring, but at any sea- 
son it was a long, jogging adventure by packet boat and 


BEGINNINGS I1 


stage with upsets and delays, and coming down through 
Virginia over roads and through swamps not until yes- 
terday really tamed by modern highways. In the course 
of time they too reached Raleigh, and went on to the 
new little University, ‘‘a raw poor beginning, just cut out 
of the forest!’ His daughter says that when Professor 
Phillips first saw the tiny village of Chapel Hill, with its 
institution numbering less than a hundred students, he 
wished himself back in Harlem, but having burned all 
his bridges he could not return. He soon grew reconciled 
to his situation, and early found a congenial friend in his 
chief, President Caldwell, whose enthusiasm for mathe- 
matics equalled his own. } 

In the year 1830 Dr. Caldwell returned from Europe 
whither he had been sent the previous year by the State 
of North Carolina to purchase books and apparatus for 
the University. Upon his return he constructed an 
astronomical observatory to house a small telescope. 
This was the first observatory built in America. He also 
brought back at this time a model railway engine and 
some lengths of track, bought in England. There were 
also mechanical and mathematical instruments and many 
books, and Professor Phillips soon became absorbed in 
these, and in his work, and no longer wished for change. 
Mrs. Phillips seems, however, to have been more discon- 
tented, regretting her distance from her old home and 
friends, dwelling on thoughts of them. She would return 
for long visits from time to time. But she also found an 
important place to fill in the life of Chapel Hill. She 
taught a school for her own and other people’s children. 
She and Mrs. Mitchell and Mrs. Hooper, all faculty 
ladies, conducted a Sunday school in the University 
Chapel on Sunday afternoon, a service which lived in 


12 ORDIDAYVIS UN TO EDA RE TEL by 


the memory of its old scholars as a source of good influ- 
ence. Mrs. Phillips had a great desire to do good in all 
ways to all men. She would visit the homes of the poor- 
est and plainest of her neighbors, would read to them 
from the Bible, and was free-handed with any other 
help that seemed needful. 

Professor James Phillips was a man heavy-built and 
sturdy, with an iron constitution. He was feared by 
the students because of his burly appearance and brusque 
speech. He did not joke, nor mingle freely with his stu- 
dents, as some did. He was also a most exacting teacher. 
He never would give help with any problem, and his 
theory was that all such requests showed simple laziness 
in his students. He remembered how he had learned his 
own mathematics all alone; he forgot how surely the 
mathematician is born and not made. Thoroughness 
was his hobby. He made manuscript translations of 
many foreign works in his line, which had not yet been 
put into English, for instance, of La Place’s later works. 
His colleague Dr. Mitchell might browse over the whole 
field of literature and science, but he himself was a spe- 
cialist. Bluff and hearty, a man for company at first, 
he soon grew more serious. 

In the year 1832 Professor Phillips became inter- 
ested in reports of the work of an evangelist named 
Nettleton, who was preaching in Virginia, and during 
the vacation of that year he and Professor Hooper to- 
gether made a journey to hear him. This preacher then 
visited Chapel Hill in the autumn and a great religious 
awakening came to both village and University. Pro- 
fessor Phillips, although always a professing Christian, 
had now a fresh religious experience which made him 
afterwards unwilling to admit that he had known any- 


BEGINNINGS ote 


thing about the Gospel in his youth. He became exceed- 
ingly earnest, preaching, praying, and holding meetings 
in and about Chapel Hill, and especially at New Hope, a 
Presbyterian church seven miles from the village. Here 
he acted in all things like a minister, only that he would 
stand in front of the pulpit, and not in it, to speak 
his discourses, and that he could not administer the 
Sacraments. 

In 1833 Orange Presbytery met at New Hope 
Church, and Dr. William McPheeters, that fine old Pres- 
byterian divine, who was both schoolmaster and city pas- 
tor at Raleigh, proposed to Professor Phillips that he be 
licensed to preach by that body; saying to him that he 
must either be licensed or silenced. He did apply to the 
Presbytery, was licensed, and in due time ordained as 
pastor of New Hope Church. He was ever afterward 
one of the most zealous preachers of his new denomina- 
tion. He shared the work of the University Chapel with 
Dr. Mitchell and others of the faculty. In the summer 
vacations he would go on long evangelizing trips through 
the state. He made as deep and as thorough a study of 
the best works on divinity as he had formerly done of 
his mathematical authorities, and his mind assimilated 
them in the same way. Once established in his mind and 
accepted, he never afterwards questioned them, but made 
them the foundation of his religious thinking and worked 
out his beliefs into practice and conduct. Having thus 
two absorbing professions, Professor Phillips continued 
his busy uneventful life without a break until the day of 
his sudden death. He was so earnest and so sincere in 
seizing every opportunity of speaking a word in season, 
that he served a parish as wide as his acquaintance. In 
a letter written by him in 1845, acknowledging a wedding 


y sai 
Ya 


Pa ri \\ \s ce 
= AUN SASS 


se 
iM an t 


rm 
\ 
\ 
\ 


at ed 
ee 


THE PHILLIPS HOUSE 


BEGINNINGS 15 


fee, he takes occasion to admonish the young husband 
that, “No family is properly founded save on the Rock of 
Ages, no hearts are really happy, though joined, unless 
the peace of God bless their union.” That this letter 
was valued is shown by its having survived all the peri- 
odic letter-burnings from that day until this. 


II 
NEIGHBORS AND THEIR CHILDREN 


HE CHAPEL HILL to which the Phillips family 

came in that year 1826 was a tiny village. In its 
midst was the University Campus with little visible there 
save three buildings each three stories high, unorna- 
mented, of plain red brick. These formed three sides of 
a quadrangle in the center of which was a wooden belfry, 
and a well. There was also a chapel called Person Hall 
from the name of a benefactor. The main street, Frank- 
lin Street, ran east and west beside the campus. A few 
residences faced on this thoroughfare, which was crossed 
at intervals by short streets or lanes giving outlet to a 
few other homes not immediately facing the highway. 
There were several shops, a tiny ramshackle hotel, a liv- 
ery stable, and that was all. Outside began not only 
country, but unbroken forest, the sea of tree-covered 
land which flowed all over North Carolina at that time. 
Clearings bore a small proportion to the extent of wooded 
acres. As Mrs. Spencer wrote: 


The surrounding square miles of country near Chapel Hill 
are undulating and varied in a small but pleasing way. It is 
the spot, geologically speaking, where the crystalline granites 
and slates which extend under the hill country join softer 
rocks and sandstones. Water runs east from Chapel Hill, and 
it is generally speaking two hundred feet higher than Raleigh. 
The oak in several of its varieties grows there in stately beauty. 
Pines and other forest trees give contrast. The many northern 
slopes and southern exposures of this broken country permit 
great variety in wild flowering plants. Species from both east 
and west grow near to each other, each finding its proper habi- 
tat near Chapel Hill. 


NEIGHBORS AND THEIR CHILDREN = 17 


The stage road crossed the main street at right 
angles, and by 1830 there was a daily stage between 
Raleigh and Pittsboro which passed through Chapel Hill. 
The few roads which connected with the outside world; 
which seemed so far away, were quagmires in winter 
and early spring, lines of billowy red dust in mid- 
summer. : 

In the year of Professor Phillips’ coming to North 
Carolina, Dr. Joseph Caldwell was president of the 
University, and the faculty consisted of Elisha Mitchell, 
Nicholas M. Hentz, and William Hooper, who taught 
respectively, Chemistry and Mineralogy, Modern Lan- 
guages, and the Greek and Latin Classics. There were 
also several tutors, young men employed as assistants. 
These, with the faculty families, and half a dozen ladies 
of the village, made up all that might be called society in 
Chapel Hill. Childhood there seems to have been a sweet 
normal experience, more so than in most familiar Ameri- 
can annals. The Phillips children were a healthy trio, 
and study and play were for them so well balanced that 
in all the mass of Mrs. Spencer’s papers, supplemented 
by her brother’s reminiscences, there never occurs any 
repining, or note of regret regarding that happy time. 
Charles was the elder of Mrs. Spencer’s brothers. He 
was by nature forceful, positive, and almost overwhelm- 
ing in championship of his own opinions. Samuel, the 
second brother, was equally able, but of a quiet spectator 
humor. Cornelia was akin to both natures, but resem- 
bled Charles most. It was because of this that she and 
Samuel seem to have been somewhat more congenial, 
their complementary qualities preventing the friction 
due to strong natures. 


18 OLD DAVSUIN) CHARRETTE 


When the little Phillips children were added to the 
handful of young Mitchells and Hentzes and Hoopers 
who played under the spreading oaks of Chapel Hill, no 
doubt they enjoyed the freedom and the outdoor life. 
Their new playmates were congenial. They felt no re- 
egret; for young children do not remember what they 
leave behind. Dr. Mitchell had a family of three girls, 
one to correspond in age to each of the Phillips children, 
and all these played together as one family. The atmos- 
phere of that sunny time was well preserved in the 
children’s stories told by one of the Mitchell girls to her 
daughter. These tales were permeated by the doings ot 
her sisters and of her playmates, “Cornelia and Charles 
and Sam Phillips,” always mentioned in the order named. 

In a series of letters written in 1904 to the sole sur- 
vivor of her childhood friends, Miss Margaret Mitchell, 
Mrs. Spencer says: 


I count it as one of the blessings that attend these later 
years, that you, old friend, are still to be spoken to, hailed 
as we go down the road. ‘When did you and I first meet?” 
O Margaret, how those days and times and friends have been 
swept away as with a flood! It must have been in the “dark 
ages’ I guess. I was about fourteen months old when my 
father and mother and their three children arrived in Chapel 
Hill the last of May, 1826. You were a baby then, in your 
nurse’s arms, while I was older, trying to walk. My first recol- 
lection of you, or rather of your Father’s house, was about 
1829, I guess. I had been paying you all a visit . . . a heavy 
rain which I dimly remember led your mother to send my 
attendant maid, Caroline, home without me, and with the pro- 
posal that I should stay all night with her girls, Mary, Ellen 
and Margaret. I recall that delightful getting ready to go to 
bed with you, and the sad sequence of my Father’s arrival to 
take me home. The taking me out of bed, and bundling me 
up in a shawl, and my Father carrying me home through the 


NEIGHBORS AND THEIR CHILDREN 19 


dark. I have never forgotten the barking of the dogs in the 
village, and the sense of security I had in my Father’s arms as 
we went along through the grove. 

Then I remember playing with the little Hentz children, 
and also Nancy and Jane Taylor. Also with Betsy Hooper, and 
with Julia Anderson, a lovely little girl with liquid black eyes, 
the Hawks’ eyes? from her mother’s family. 

And I remember with you those heavy old barouches which 
our mothers used. Heavy, ugly, but as you say they gave us 
a great deal of pleasure and are to be remembered with grati- 
tude. A favorite drive of my mother’s, Charles driving, was 
around the race track! Do you remember that? Think of 
Chapel Hill having a race track! It was where the railroad 
station now is, on part of the same ground. 

My next recollection of you is connected with M. Bour- 
gevin’s® French classes (he took such a great deal of pains with 
us) and of how my brothers used to draw me, in a little sled 
which they had made, to your house for them. That was 
when snow was on the ground. I remember I was as proud 
of going to say my French lesson as ever Miss ‘‘Morleena 
Kenwigs’’ could have been! 


Mrs. Spencer says elsewhere that the families who 
came in from the country and settled around the infant 
University were very plain or even rough and vicious 
people. They came mostly to take boarders or to live by 
some dependence on the needs of the students. In the 


* Reverend Francis Lister Hawks, D.D., of New Bern, North 
Carolina, was born in 1798, graduated at the University of North 
Carolina, wrote the History of North Carolina from 1584 to 1729, 
became an Episcopal clergyman and served churches in Baltimore, 
New Orleans, and in New York City. He was at last Rector of 
St. Thomas’ in New York City, dying in 1866. He was an extremely 
handsome man with bright dark eyes. His daughter married Walker 
Anderson, a member of the University faculty for years, and he 
was Dr. Caldwell’s assistant, in 1833. 


*M. Bourgevin was one of the series of French tutors who came 
to Chapel Hill to teach their language and literature. They were 
usually refugees from political trouble. Another was M. Marey, 
very accomplished, but whose vice of drunkenness ended his career. 
M. Harrisse will be mentioned later. He was the last, and he 
became a historian of some note aiter his return to France. 


BO) OE DVD AY Sa GRA Rh aaah 


early. years of the last century horse racing, cock fights 
and gambling, hard drinking, and here and there a mur- 
der were the usual accompaniments of the lives of the 
common folk around Chapel Hill. The thirties and 
forties were years when all the population in the Eastern 
states was thinned out and drained off to occupy the 
broad prairies of the West. Innumerable North Carolina 
names are found in Indiana and southern Illinois, as 
well as in Missouri, Mississippi, and Texas. The Quak- 
ers went west for free soil, and the planters for rich 
bottom lands. Mrs. Spencer speaks of this migration: 

Another of my earliest recollections is that of frequently 
seeing long processions passing through town, of white covered 
wagons, full of beds, buckets and babies, with lean men and 
women, tow headed children and yellow dogs walking beside. 
“Movers” we children called them. We always made a rush 
for the front door or gate to stare at the exodus. “Going out 
West,” was the invariable reply to all queries. Something 


pathetic about their appearance still lingers in my mind as I 
recall them. 


About the middle of the summer of 1826, after the 
Phillips family had come to Chapel Hill, a boy called 
Andrew Johnson came in over the Raleigh road, was fed 
by the hostess at the old tavern, and rested and refreshed 
himself at the spring in the hollow called the “Roaring 
Fountain.” This future President of the United States 
was just then escaping from the master in Raleigh to 
whom he was indentured to learn the tailor’s trade. He 
was born there in 1808, and returned as President of the 
United States in 1866. He told this story when attending 
Commencement at the University at that time. Another 
future President had already graduated at the head of 
his class in 1818. He also went to Tennessee. His name 


NEIGHBORS AND THEIR CHILDREN 21 


was James Knox Polk. And so nobody knows when 
important future events cast their shadows before them, 
for in spite of the old adage they do not betray themselves. 

At the time when Professor Phillips came to Chapel 
Hill, no question of the institution of slavery seems to 
have been raised in his mind. He bought a married 
couple, “Aunt Dilsey” and “Uncle Ben,” almost directly 
after he arrived. Their names recur over and over as 
our narrative goes on, and the relation between them and 
their white folks was ever of the kindest. After eman- 
cipation this couple remained with their former owners, 
and in 1866 Dr. Phillips gave Dilsey her first freed- 
woman’s wages, the first five-dollar gold piece that came 
to him just after the war. This woman was loved, sup- 
ported, petted, and in old age tenderly nursed yy her 
former owners. 

As to the early setting of Mr. Spencer’s Hie we 
have her account in a letter to a daughter of her old 
playmate, Ellen Mitchell: 


When your grandparents went to housekeeping in earnest, 
they sent north for their furniture. They had a mahogany 
secretary, and a little workstand with drawers and brass mount- 
ing that always stood by your grandmother’s chair on the right 
side of the fireplace. I used often to see Mrs. Mitchell sitting 
there, so neat, so precise and so cheerful. They also bought 
well-made tables and chairs. No sofa in that house. People 
did not spend more money than they could help, in those days, 
on furniture. Bric-a-brac was unknown. | 

I do often feel amazed and ashamed when I recall the entire 
lack of conveniences, and even of comforts or of anything 
beautiful in our ways of living at Chapel Hill. Lack of trans- 
portation facilities was the great obstacle. A box of books 
could be hauled across the state from Petersburgh or from 
Fayetteville with less risk than a piece of furniture. I have 
heard my mother say that she felt so jealous when Mrs. 


22 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL: HILL 


Mitchell showed her that neat mahogany secretary, and that 
pretty workstand! 


“Brother Sam,’ writing to his sister late in the 
eighties, says: 
Oh for a full inhalation of the breath of the New Year, 


about 1834 or ’35, or of a May, or an October in those years! 


It would be more enlivening than a mint julep, or an apple- 
toddy! 


No education is perfect which does not permit a child 
to know the natural objects about him thoroughly. 
Children should be as much interested in the intimate 
knowledge of their home garden, in 


“The fairy things that pass 
“In the forest of the grass,” 


as in far prospects. Naturally they will be so, and 
Chapel Hill was full of this minute loveliness. Besides 
woodsy banks where yellow jessamine grew, and coves 
where rhododendron and kalmia flourished, all the little 
streams, the rocks and the woods were known thoroughly. 
In after years those free ranging days of childhood 
were recalled fondly by these brothers and their sister, 
down to the extremity of age. Here is what “Brother 
Sam” calls “A little Cameo of Chapel Hill’: 


At some time in the century from 1735 to 1835, Joe Hooper 
and I went fishing one Commencement for horny-heads and 
minnows, down Hooper’s Branch. If I were at Chapel Hill 
this Commencement I should choose to take a fishing line and 
follow the Branch again; but alas, what changes in the last 
century! The fish have forsaken that branch. It has not 
so much water in it as formerly. There were then some respec- 
able holes at the roots of trees where a minnow or a horny- 
head or a small cat-fish might have a great deal of fun, until 
one of the Hoopers or the Phillipses came along. 


NEIGHBORS AND THEIR CHILDREN = 23 


In another letter he writes: 


! was at Mangum’s Creek, and I decided to ride home along 
the creek bank. It was a most charming evening. The tender 
foliage had every shade of green, and where the plow per- 
mitted, the ground was enamelled with violets, phlox and 
Houstonia. I shall never forget that ride. Returning from 
Adee’s place I saw in two or three patches about one solid acre 
of phlox in bloom. The little hillsides within the plowed 
field blended with it. I never saw such a quantity. 


These great sheets of blooming pink phlox are a 
lovely springtime habit of some old fields in central 
North Carolina. | 

Mrs. Spencer cannot refrain from continually put- 
ting down in her journals little visions of her old home. 


They occur most frequently in her later years, after she 
had left North Carolina. 


The look of the woods in summer, plum trees with red 
fruit along the road, blackberries shining out, pink and purple 
partridge peas along its dusty border. Everything limp and 
wilted at midday, but standing straight and dewy in the 
morning. 


A winter scene: 


The distant hills, the pines, the woods, everything my 
mind’s eye rested upon were in their winter’s best aspect— 
soft and calm, grey and yellow and sunny. 

I watched the clouds this evening, as they formed and 
changed and passed. I thought of every feature of my old 
home, of its streets, houses, groves, hills, and streams. The 
stories of the neighborhood, and the movements of population 
in the far past. 


This last is a text whereby we may revive all that 
Mrs. Spencer would have wished to keep alive, all that 
she tried to preserve, by writing it down in her records, 


245. OL DIDAY SEN CHAR ET HT? 


so long unexplored. Turning over the great trunkful 
of her letters and papers, tracing their connections, it 
becomes a game to piece together phrases and allusions, 
and a sentence here and there, to make a picture of a 
whole society, to find out about those who formerly held 
the torch for us and passed it to our immediate prede- 
cessors. But as Mrs. Spencer says: 


We cannot keep these old University Presidents and Pro- 
fessors, these men whose influence remains until today—and 
yet they are forgotten—before the world’s eye, by simply say- 
ing again and again that they were great. The world will 
cynically ask, What did they do for us? And even if these 
questions are answered satisfactorily, the world is apt to turn 
from our old gossip to those who are still speaking aloud to us. 


President Joseph Caldwell, after his return from 
Europe, tried with all his might to interest his state in 
transportation. He wrote what he called the ‘Carlton 
Letters” in which, in simple popular language, he ad- 
vanced the feasibility of building a tram road which 
should go through the center of the state, with as many 
branches as you please, and give the farmers a means of 
hauling their produce to a market. This plan, practical 
for the time, was set forth in a dialogue between the 
writer and a simple farmer, and couched in homespun 
phrase. But how could the ignorant isolated farmers to 
whom it was addressed know anything about it? How 
could they understand it? So many of them could not 
read. And so the little book remains one of the naive 
fruitless beginnings of which North Carolina can count 
a good many. 

Dr. Elisha Mitchell, next to President Caldwell in 
distinction, was a remarkable figure. Born in Connecti- 
cut, he was a Yale man, and had been a tutor there after 


NEIGHBORS AND THEIR CHILDREN) 25 


his graduation. Classmates of his were Judge Long- 
street of Georgia, Judge William Badger of North Caro- 
lina, and Denison Olmsted who had just returned to his 
Alma Mater as Professor of Mathematics. Judge Wil- 
liam Gaston, of the Supreme Court of North Carolina, 
heard, presumably through Judge Badger, of this bril- 
liant young man, and took pains to secure him for the 
University. Professor Mitchell was an ordained Con- 
gregational minister, but had never held a charge. His 


uae great passion was an overmastering curiosity about all 


| facts whatsoever. Settled in a comparatively new and 
' unrecorded country, he was in pain until he had explored 


it, geologized and botanized it. When vacations came 
he mounted his horse and fared out on long journeys 
into every part of the state, until he knew a great part of | 
what was to be found in its boundaries. He was a chem- 
ist and a mathematician, a classical scholar and a student 
of literature in several modern languages. It was said of 
him that he could fill any chair in the University of that 
time except that of Law, but this versatility of his was 
his undoing. If he could only have settled upon some one 
thing of paramount interest to him, he would surely have 
left more than a local reputation. His wife was as well 
educated as himself, a woman also of executive ability. 

Dr. Mitchell was a magnificent tall figure of a man, 
a real athlete, with domed forehead and piercing dark 
eyes. He was so busy, so interested, so happy in it all, 
that life seemed a delightful excursion to him. 

Professor Hentz was a Frenchman, a native of Al- 
sace. His wife was from New England, a highly culti- 
vated woman. These were people who would have been 
distinguished anywhere. From the first they were the 
intimate friends of the Phillips family, and when in 1830 


26 OLD DAYS IN' CHAR BTW HITT 


they left Chapel Hill they seem to have looked lovingly 
back to what Mrs. Hentz called the “kindness, warm 
feeling, hospitality and union of Chapel Hill.” Pro- 
fessor Hentz was called by Dr. Mitchell “the foremost 
entomologist of America,” this study being pursued by 
him by way of a hobby. Mrs. Hentz was of a literary 
turn, wrote verses and a play or two, and after she left 
Chapel Hill produced several novels, books successful in 
their time, but long forgotten. Mrs. Spencer says that her 
story Lovel’s Folly contained half a dozen Chapel Hill 
portraits, delineating especially the dignified, family- 
proud house-servants at Dr. Caldwell’s, types which 
must have been very interesting to this New England 
woman. Both of the Hentzes could draw, and painted 
in watercolors. 

Dr. Caldwell had lost his young wife and baby shortly 
after he came to Chapel Hill. It was his second wife 
with whom he was living when the Phillips family 
arrived. She had been a widow, a Mrs. William Hooper, 
of Hillsborough, North Carolina. She was a native 
Scotswoman. Her first husband was the intimate friend 
of James Iredell, and a son of William Hooper, the signer 
of the Declaration of Independence. Mrs. Hooper had 
moved to Chapel Hill after her widowhood to educate 
her sons. Her son William took a degree at Princeton 
after graduating at the University of North Carolina, 
and had come back to take the chair of Latin and Greek. 
It seems to have been the custom for each professor to 
be a clergyman in some Protestant denomination. Pro- 
fessor William Hooper was first an Episcopalian, but 
afterwards went into the Baptist Church, becoming un- 
settled regarding the proper mode of Baptism. He lived 
to be extremely old, and died long after the Civil War, 


NEIGHBORS AND THEIR CHILDREN = 27 


within the memory of those now middle-aged. He wasa 
charming and cultured man, a revered and beloved divine, 
and a ripe scholar. 

With each year the University prospered, and the 
village folk became more civilized, until by the time Dr. 
Caldwell died, in 1835, the faculty were eight in number, 
and the students numbered 165. 

This is the home, and these the companions to whom 
the Phillips family were introduced in the spring of 1826. 
It is worth mentioning and easy to understand, that from 
the first this little University community was raised well 
out of the common rut, and above the dead level of other 
places of its size, by its central interest. It was always 
considered a most satisfactory place to live. All the 
older folk who began their lives there unite in this testi- 
mony. When they left its shady groves they felt that 
they had left Arcadia behind them. This may be true of 
other college towns, but it is signally true of Chapel Hill. 
Now and today, and from the first, it has always been 
the most worth-while, and the least ‘“‘Main-streety” of all 
North Carolina communities. 


III 
AN OLD-FASHIONED EDUCATION 


DUCATION began early for the group of children 

in Chapel Hill. There were not any public schools 

of any consequence in North Carolina until long after 

the Civil War, and $0 our young people had to be taught 

by private effort, at home or at pay schools. The little 

folk of whom we are speaking fared better, as regards 

intellectual pursuits, than almost any others in the state 

by reason of the academic atmosphere of their home, 
and the many good teachers who were available. 

Dr. Mitchell had educational theories which he bor- 
rowed from John Stuart Mill’s father. He wanted to 
make his daughters prodigies of early attainment. When 
his eldest was but six years old he wrote his wife to “push 
the girls along in learning.” That was the way it was 
done then in the Mitchell, Hooper, and Phillips families. 
The children could read almost as soon as they. could 
speak, were born reading as they often said, while Latin 
came immediately after at an exceedingly early age. Cor- 
nelia Phillips was stimulated in this way. A letter from 
the papers of Dr. Mitchell, written by his wife to her 
mother in Connecticut, dated September 19, 1830, tells 
of the education of her girls, which was the same, or 
nearly so, for their companions. ‘Mary’ referred to, 
was eight years old. “Ellen” and “Margaret” were 
eighteen months and three years younger respectively. 


Mary has been through the first eight books of Caesar 
twice... Every geographical and historical reference has 
been carefully explained to her. In accuracy of knowledge of 
Latin she is not surpassed I am sure by any child of eight years 


AN OLD-FASHIONED EDUCATION fie 


in Connecticut. She knows a good deal of geography both an- 
cient and modern, some arithmetic, something of botany, and 
by the aid of Mrs. Phillips has a very thorough acquaintance 
with the history and geography of the Bible. She has reached 
the nineteenth Psalm in learning by heart. She is reading 
Roman History, as well as story books aloud to me. She 
writes, makes her own bed, sweeps, is up every morning at 
sunrise. Her health is excellent. She romps about the house 
and yard four hours a day. I have bought twenty pairs of 
shoes for my three young scamperers since last fall. 


It may be added in this connection that these four 
girls, Mary and her two sisters, and Cornelia Phillips, 
remained perfectly strong and healthy for the greater 
part of long and useful lives. 

When Cornelia Phillips was five years old she wrote 
out a sentence from the Psalms, “O give thanks unto the 
Lord for He is good!” 


This was my first attempt at writing continuously with my 
childish hand. I was so proud of having done it, and my 
Father and Mother praised me so much for my attempt that I 
have never forgotten how those crooked letters looked, up and 
down hill. I wish I had kept them. I would like to have that 
line on my tombstone, my first and my last message. 

I remember also that Dr. William Hooper, who was a 
teacher with the power to inspire his pupils with enthusiasm, 
once voluntarily undertook to conduct a class of children along 
the way of the Retreat of the Ten Thousand. I was the 
youngest of the class, and though it seems absurd to say that 
a little girl of eleven could have been reading Greek in any 
appreciation of the author, yet it is true that I have never lost 
the impression made upon my childish mind by that immortal 
narrative. The extraordinary perils and hardships of the 
march, the deep snows, the unknown nations, the mountains, 
the perpetual fighting, the disastrous feast of poisoned honey, 
and the final triumphal arrival at—The Sea! The Sea! Such 
effect must be largely due to the teacher’s skillful way of putting 


30 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


things, for all this is still vivid in my memory after more than 
fifty years. | 

We recited in the brick “office” in Dr. Caldwell’s yard. 
The class consisted of Dr. Mitchell’s two eldest daughters, a 
son of Dr. Hooper, my two brothers and myself. I toiled on 
considerably in the rear as we pursued the flying Greeks. One 
chance I lost. Some words went down the line and came to 
me. ‘‘Now Cornelia!” cried Dr. Hooper eagerly; ‘‘beat ’em 
all, and you shall go to my garden and pull as many jonquils 
and hyacinths as you can carry home.’ I opened my mouth 
and was going to give the translation, for I happened to know 
it—when my Brother Charles snatched it from me, and saved 
himself—and I went mourning home without any jonquils. 


A further account is found written in 1907, by 
herself : 


My life has been rather uneventful, spent quietly, at the 
feet of the University, in the remotest town of the quietest 
county of the most backward old state in the Union. There are 
no adventures, enterprises or changes of importance to nar- 
rate, regarding my youth. 

In old Chapel Hill, life’s ways and thoughts outside of what 
books could give were thoroughly provincial, no doubt narrow. 

Children were taught at home. Any learning for them, 
outside certain established educational lines, was considered 
queer, i.e., revolutionary. Education was highly esteemed, 
carefully provided, but it must go in the way the Fathers trod. 
Latin and Greek and French were the first foundations, ancient 
history, ancient geography in preference to anything modern. 
The old was considered better than the new. Dead languages 
were considered preferable to the living. 

Dr. James Phillips and his wife, who did have some aspir- 
ations which might have been called altruistic, if the word 
had then been known, directed the education of their daughter 
very much along with that of her brothers, with this difference, 
that as they grew up theirs was expanded while hers remained 
stationary on the lines of its earliest direction. 

When one wearied in those early days of the wanderings 
of Ulysses, there was Telemachus to take up the tale, or the 


AN OLD-FASHIONED EDUCATION 31 


pious Atneas to place his achievements in the best possible 
light. Or there was Ovid, so easily understood, and so fasci- 
nating because of that. Later came Horace, dear old heathen, 
and there were the dramatists and the historians of ancient 
Greece and Rome. For a change the French stage was given, 
and French sermons, and Mme de Staél’s Corinne. 

Later still the English language and literature had some 
attention, and also algebra and elementary chemistry. 


In another connection she says that she “formed her 
literary taste, in her teens on the British essayists.”’ She 
was always a voracious and omnivorous reader, and it 
was early that she discovered her favorite form of liter- 
ature in the many volumes of annals, letters, and biogra- 
phies published in England during a century before, and 
beginning with Boswell’s Johnson, her favorite of all 
books. 

She adds: 


All educational work was slow and done without any 
thought of training for mind and body as training is under- 
stood in this day. There was a good deal of simple happiness, 
and much converse with the woods and hills and streams, the 
wild flowers and fruits of the country, mixed with the books. 
The children grew up strong and healthy, ready for any work 
that might offer. 


Again she speaks of the “crumbs that fell from the 
University table” being her “portion.” These crumbs 
must have been abundant and nutritious. 

It does not always happen that a woman’s brothers 
remain her most intimate friends for the whole of a long 
lifetime. This Phillips family has not often been sur- 
passed for clear intellect, and it was quite as much dis- 
tinguished for family solidarity and family affection. 
Cornelia Phillips and her two brothers were knit together 
in a threefold cord. She loved them all her life devotedly, 


32 OLD DAYS ‘IN| CHAPPED HIE 


while they gave her the best that was in them. Charles, 
the elder brother, inherited his father’s strong bent to- 
ward mathematical studies, while Samuel had a more | 
judicial, more philosophic mind. Both entered college 
and graduated together in the class of 1841, sharing 
between them the first distinction. With them there 
graduated a number of men who did good work in the 
service of North Carolina, among whom Calvin H. 
Wiley, the builder of the public school system of North 
Carolina, might be named pre-eminent. John W. Ellis, 
who was governor of the state at the outbreak of the 
Civil War, was another classmate. Upon graduating 
Charles Phillips found it hard to decide finally upon his 
career. Mrs. Spencer has noted as the worst fault of 
her own, in common with her brothers, that the variety 
of their interests made it hard for them to leave one good 
thing and grasp another. Charles Phillips read medicine 
for a while with Dr. William Jones, Chapel Hill’s new 
physician, who had come straight from two years medi- 
cal training in Europe. Then he suddenly set his heart 
upon the ministry as his chosen profession. He went 
immediately to Princeton College to study theology, but 
also took some mathematics because he loved it. Then 
President Swain, who had by that time succeeded Dr. 
Caldwell, importuned him to prepare further, and to 
return as his father’s assistant. Applied mathematics 
became Charles Phillips’ specialty, a branch very impor- 
tant to a new country just building its railroads. Samuel 
studied law, and began to practice in the North Carolina 
courts, keeping his residence at Chapel Hill. Both these 
men were large and powerful of build. Samuel was the 
more regularly handsome. He and Cornelia resembled 
their father most, but she was never at all a pretty 


AN OLD-FASHIONED EDUCATION 33 


woman, if pink and white regularity of feature consti- 
tutes beauty. Her face was too strongly marked for a 
woman. She had a rather heavy nose which she consid- 
ered a real affliction. Her figure was tall, and rather 
full, though not stout. Her eyes were her great beauty. 
Old friends have written of the beauty of Miss Cornie’s 
eyes, and of her quick merry wit. Except for habitual 
ear-aches upon taking cold, Mrs. Spencer was never sick 
in her whole long life. From her mother she drew the 
desire to express herself in writing. From her mother 
also she learned good housewifery, although in those 
days of many servants it was more the overseeing that 
was needed. But Cornelia could do fancy cooking, she 
could sew beautifully, for in those days all sewing was 
done by hand, and “tiny stitches set in straight rows” 
were expected of all truly “lady-like women.” She loved 
to sew. In an early letter she says, ““Ma seems to think I 
am good for nothing but to stitch shirt-bosoms and make 
buttonholes for our lawyer, Sam.” Again she says, “I 
glory in my white sewing.” 

She had a marked talent for drawing, developing it as 
an amusement for her later years, rather than in her 
youth. She played the old-fashioned dance music mer- 
rily and tunefully. She had an ear for songs and hymns. 
She drew a vignette of the University which was repro- 
duced on all the old ball programs, and each year she did 
the engrossing of the names upon the college diplomas. 
Her handwriting is exquisite. Her earlier writing is 
perhaps more carefully limned, and was doubtless writ- 
ten with a quill; but from the first letter to the last diary 
her even script goes on the same, plain as print, and with 
scarcely an erasure or a blot. Her books of extracts 


34 OD IDAY S IN CHAT IT htiiah 


begin when she was eighteen. Into them she copied those 
literary selections which seemed to her worthy of ver- 
batim memory. 

One receives an impression of her mind at this time 
from these copy-books. She is reading the very newest 
books. She admires Macaulay as young folk used to do 
“because of his definiteness.” “He seems to hold the key 
to the history of the world in his hand.” Carlyle also she 
copies frequently, although she is told that “his work is 
considered heady and rough,” and indeed the then reign- 
ing literary style is very leisurely. She reads Coleridge, 
Ruskin, Lady Mary Wortley Montagu, Horace Walpole, 
Boswells’ Johnson, Daniel Webster, and N. P. Willis. 
She is frequently setting down Thackeray’s cynicisms, 
good cautions for an exuberant young person. 

Long years after it was said of her by an old pupil, 
Judge Hannis Taylor, who wrote a great book on the 
English Constitution: “She is a woman of a remark- 
ably strong mind and character, and with more education, 
real education, than any woman I have ever known.” 

~ As soon as Cornelia Phillips was past her middle 
teens—and girls matured early enough in those days— 
she began to enter into all the jolly companionship and 
pleasant gossip of the little college community. The Uni- 
versity had grown remarkably both in numbers and 
reputation. It was no longer a struggling little back- 
woods college, but students came there from the entire 
southwest. A little Latin and Greek did not sober the 
nonsense of those girls of Chapel Hill. Away from home, 
as one of them declared, you could conceal your knowl- 
edge and be thought as ignorant as other young folk, 
and at home nobody thought it strange for girls to study. 


AN OLD-FASHIONED EDUCATION 35 


Now and then a snow would come south, and the 
young men came with improvised sleds to take the ladies 
sleighing. Commencements were regularly recurring fes- 
tivals. There were speakings, there were parties where 
the whole friendly faculty society assembled. These last 
always included select upperclassmen, and visiting ladies. 
In the wonderful trunkful of papers, invitations to these 
parties are found, written in fine slanting hand-writing 
on tiny sheets of hot-pressed paper. 


A merry laughing time it was, but I fear quite fruitless 
and unprofitable. 

And again I seem to smell the pennyroyal and see the 
orange asclepias and yellow evening primrose in the fence 
corners, to hear Bob White calling from the wheat stubble. 
Summer vacation times in Chapel Hill in the Forties! All of 
us sweetly doing nothing through the long hot days—going to 
the University Library, and bringing home lots of books, 
novels, histories, biographies, etc., lying down after dinner to 
read. Going out later to find our Aunt Dilsey sitting at her 
cabin door smoking her pipe—perhaps patching something 
for Uncle Ben. The very cats and dogs languidly stretched out 
under the shade of some pleasant bush. Lotos eaters we were 
in those Forties and Fifties. 


The very first piece of Mrs. Spencer’s handwriting 
which has been preserved is a poem, or rhymed epistle, 
written to her father in 1842, when she was seventeen 
years old. Dr. Phillips was an inexorable mathematician 
who said of himself that he cared not at all whether he 
was contemplating the orbit of a comet or the fall of an 
apple, provided that he could calculate the law of its 
motion by his science; and he had been urging his daugh- 
ter a little too zealously along his chosen path. She says 
of herself that she never cared particularly about mathe- 


36 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


matics, and so to ward off his solicitude and damp his 
expectations she wrote him this little rhymed letter: 


Refraction and reflection, Pa, 

Canvassed with so much learning here, 
Light’s beautiful phenomena, 

Are all but lost on me I fear. 


These rays of light, all polarized, 
Angles and planes of incidence; 

These bodies long since crystallized 
Exerting each its influence; 


Chromatics and photometers, 

Mirages too, “‘Similes Maribus,” 
Adsorption sines, thermometers, 

And many such coeteris partbus— 


Tell me I pray you if you please, 
Does all this scientific lore, 
Deepen the blue of skies and seas— 
Make brighter landscapes than before? 


Where’er you roam, at home, abroad, 
Has life a “graver sweeter charm?” 

Does science bring you nearer God? 
Or free your soul from all alarm? 


If not, this deep research, how vain! 
How vain such useless lore to crave, 

That rescues not from toil and pain, 
Nor saves one votary from the grave! 


IV 


A “YOUNG LADY’S” FRIENDS 
IN CHAPEL HILL 


FTER Dr. Joseph Caldwell had died, at the very 
beginning of 1835, there was selected to succeed 
him a man whom one might consider a strange choice 
for the position of President of a university. This was 
David Lowrie Swain, popularly called “Governor” 
Swain, and never ‘‘President,” being given the title of 
his highest state office. This new President was in the 
prime of life, and by reason of early poverty and later 
success in politics, joined with a certain wise simplicity 
of demeanor, and a fervid love for the Union, he may be 
compared with Abraham Lincoln in early life. He had, 
however, many more worldly advantages than Lincoln, 
for he came of excellent people, widely connected, he fell 
early into the hands of a good schoolmaster who taught 
him both Latin and Greek, and he even persevered so 
far with his education as to reach the University. He 
was a mountaineer by birth and is described as a rather 
grotesque figure in his youth. He roomed while at the 
University with Leonidas Polk of Raleigh, he who was 
later called the “Fighting Bishop’ because he was at the 
same time Bishop of Louisiana and a Confederate Brig- 
adier-General. Lack of money prevented young Swain’s 
remaining long in college. After only eighteen months 
we find him living in Raleigh, and studying law. A few 
years later he married Eleanor White, daughter of the 
Secretary of State, and granddaughter of Governor 
Richard Caswell. 


38 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


The first step of his public career was representing 
Buncombe, his native county, in the Legislature. At this 
time he obtained state aid for building the French Broad 
Turnpike. He was then appointed Judge of the Superior 
Court for a far eastern district where politics had run 
so high that no local man could command support. After 
that he was Governor of North Carolina for three terms; 
he saw the old State House burned and the new Capitol 
begun, he helped to launch the undertaking of building 
railroads in the state, and after his last term as Governor 
sat to represent his county in the Constitutional Conven- 
tion of 1835. | 

When Governor Swain asked his friend Judge Nash 
to support his application for the appointment as Presi- 
dent of the University, after Dr. Caldwell’s death, the 
Judge was thunderstruck. However, he talked the mat- 
ter over with another trustee, Judge Cameron, and the 
latter took quite a different view. He said, “As Gov- 
ernor Swain has always swayed and managed men so 
perfectly, perhaps he is the very man to do as well with 
unruly boys.” Not until 1838 was Governor Swain 
finally placed over the University and installed. He then 
moved to Chapel Hill to rule over a faculty all his seniors 
in age and his superiors in scholarship, who had been 
teachers all their lives. His selection as President of the 
University was, to his faculty, a deep chagrin. His per- 
sonal appearance was a great contrast to the elegant 
dignity of Dr. Caldwell, for he was tall, ungainly, and 
shambling. His face was large and long of feature, his 
expression solemn and sheepish, though with a quizzical 
twinkle often visible upon it. Largely self-taught, he 
was neither a great lawyer nor a great speaker. His 
specialty was history, or rather the collection of the raw 


A “YOUNG LADY’S” FRIENDS ies 


material of which history is made. This pursuit he fol- 
lowed more as a hobby than as a serious object of study. 
But his knowledge of these details of history and of 
political questions was undoubtedly very great. 

It is no wonder that Dr. William Hooper left the 
faculty just then, feeling outraged at the successor 
selected for his reverend step-father. No wonder that 
he sneered openly and said, “North Carolina has given 
Governor Swain every office he has ever asked for, and 
now she is sending him to college to get an education.” 
But Governor Swain’s long administration of thirty- 
three years, just beginning, was to be a success. Mrs. 
Spencer sums him up: 

All through life he showed sagacity in judging men, pru- 
dence in managing them, and charity in judging them. He 
saw clearly, he acted cautiously, and he felt kindly. He was 
one of those ngtable men who find success in life from their 
habit of always making themselves agreeable. 


Added to this he had a discreet financial sense. Every 
dollar he expended had to render up full value received. 
The students at his accession rejoiced to see a man whom 
they felt sure they could bedevil with impunity, but Gov- 
ernor Swain took everything as it came with exceeding 
calmness. Of course the students nick-named him “Old 
Bunk” from his native county of Buncombe, which was 
then merely the name of a place, and not a synonym for 
inflated oratory. His second nick-name was “Old Warp- 
ing-bars,’ from his loose-jointed frame. This last com- 
parison is lost on the present generation, who never saw 
the two wooden bars loosely united by a shackling cross- 
piece, which could be leaned up against a convenient wall, 
to hold the hanks of measured warp, spread across, upon 
the parallel rows of pegs. 


40 OUDIDAY S IN CHAPEL ATV 


He said himself that when he first came to Chapel Hill 
he received many a fling from his students, who made 
fun of him openly. He added that he always “revised 
himself” if needful “in the direction to which the jibe or 
the caricature pointed;”’ “fas est ab hoste docerv’ he 
would add with a merry twinkle of his eye. 

Governor Swain knew the state thoroughly. He had 
worked with all its prominent men, of whom there were 
not many in such a small population. His memory for 
the details of family connections, names and faces, was 
as tenacious as was Dr. Mitchell’s regarding the location 
of a rare plant or fossil. When a student went up for 
his customary interview with the President, after ma- 
triculation, the conversation between him and Governor 
Swain would be like this: “Your name is Archer, sir ?— 
Archer—and you are from over in Blank County? Oh 
yes, | knew your father—knew him mighty well—he 
used to run for the Legislature against old Captain 
Smith—sometimes he used to beat him—well! —Now, 
young man, we have had twelve Archers matriculate here 
since this University was first opened, and only three of 
them graduated! Better mind your book, sir, for you 
don’t come of a first rate breed of pups.” Governor 
Swain took pride in the fact that in almost every case he 
could tell a student more of his own family history than 
the boy had previously known. “You see I know more 
about you than you know about yourself,’ he would 
conclude. 

Governor Swain introduced some improvements into 
college affairs. He was the first to stand for temperance 
and to procure legislative enactment against the sale of 
liquor within the environs of Chapel Hill. He required 
the Bible to be taught as a subject of the regular cur- 


AW YOUNG LADY'S” PTRIENDS 41 


riculum. He hired an English gardener to lay out the 
campus and beautify the village. He initiated the cus- 
tom of giving a senior banquet to the boys of each 
graduating class, and he insisted on weekly faculty 
meetings. Heretofore the near-by trustees had had 
much to do with the minutiae of discipline, but by his 
influence Governor Swain changed this ruling, so that 
he and the faculty wielded the widest discretion. 

Governor Swain had a great liking for things done 
with elegance and in style. While he himself was as 
plain as possible, yet he had a handsomely furnished 
home, kept good carriage horses, and spent his money 
not profusely but carefully. He never gave money 
away, but he “would always assist his poor neighbors 
with a loan, which he never distressed them to pay.” 
Dr. Caldwell had been isolated in the village. Governor 
Swain loved and fostered its beauty and prosperity. 
Chapel Hill is peculiar in the state for the stone walls 
which have been used to bound the divisions of land. It 
was Governor Swain who first had the campus enclosed 
with walls laid of loose stones. Dr. Mitchell, who was 
a farmer’s son from Connecticut, was called in, to show 
how a wall might be made of the gathered fragments, 
and he is said to have built up the first rod of it with his 
own hands. When many rose-vines were allowed to trail 
over these and partly cover them, and ivy was planted 
in other places, the effect was to give a look of perma- 
nence to the place. Few of the original walls are undis- 
turbed at this time, but the custom has been long estab- 
lished of using stone instead of picket fences. Mrs. 
Spencer further says of her old friend: 


Governor Swain was called far too lax in discipline. He 
always thought of the parents at home, and there were often 


42 OLDIDAYS IN CHAPERT (EIT 


collisions with Drs. Phillips and Mitchell, who had been trained 
to Dr. Caldwell’s methods. When however he finally pro- 
nounced sentence it was final. This homespun Governor had 
a dignity which sat well upon a plain man. However he might 
laugh and joke with the sauciest student, he had a limit, and 
the boys never overstepped it. 

He believed in numbers and in the attrition of a large 
society. He trusted the boys much more than his predecessor 
had done, and he made the college popular. He was a good 
advertiser, and under his administration numbers were added 
to the institution. He never wanted to change his faculty, and 
he would buy neither new books nor new apparatus. His aim 
was to turn out good material for lawyers and political leaders 
for the South, and he under-rated high and deep scholarship. 
They used to say that the only use Governor Swain had for a 
library was to put it in the garret, for all the collections were 
housed in this way, just under the roof... . 

The most important factor in any man’s career is the 
woman whom he makes his wife. Mrs. Swain possessed her 
husband’s entire love and confidence to the last hour of his 
life. In many respects she deserved it, but in some she did 
not. Her weakness was her children, and she spoiled them all 
systematically, never allowing the slightest criticism of them. 
She made it her business to conceal their shortcomings from 
their father. She was aided in this by a set of pampered 
negroes whom she also indulged on the same ground that she 
spoiled her children, because they were hers. And so Gover- 
nor Swain’s family servants were a by-word for wickedness, 
and his children grew up to bring him infinite anxiety and 
sorrow. 

In saying this I have said all that I intend as to the short- 
comings in the administration of his affairs. Making every 


deduction on the score of too great indulgence, . . . he was a 
great man. He ruled his four hundred wild boys on the whole, 
wisely. . . . That tall ungainly figure, that sonorous voice, 


those nervous trembling hands, that look of infinite benignity 
and sympathy turned on all who approached him, we all 
know ... We all know the melancholy that often wrapped 


A “YOUNG LADY'S” FRIENDS 43 


him like a garment. We do full justice to the sagacious good 
sense that marked his long successful administration. 

When Dr. Hooper went away, Professor Manuel Fetter 
came in his place. He was a native of Pennsylvania. Then 
Reverend Mercer Green, an Episcopal clergyman, came from 
Hillsborough, North Carolina, to teach English, or as they 
called it belles lettres. Those Greens had that air of gen- 
tility which is not dependent upon tailors or upholsterers. Mr. 
Green shared the chaplaincy of the University with Dr. 
Mitchell and with Dr. C. F. Deems, a brilliant young Metho- 
dist, who was later pastor of the Church of the Strangers in 
New York City. 


Everybody, villagers, students, and faculty, went on 
Sunday to both services, to the Chapel in the morning, 
and to the village church in the evening. Mrs. Spencer 
somewhere says, ‘““Whoever preached at one preached at 
both services. After awhile the Methodists began to 
hold meetings of their own, where they could shout if 
so inclined.” 

It was then that Dr. Green planned and built the 
lovely little Episcopal Church which still is standing, 
flanked by a larger new one. He began on faith, without 
funds, but money came slowly in, and it was dedicated 
in 1848. Judge William Battle and other Episcopal 
heads of families had come to Chapel Hill by this time, 
and there was a flourishing church. Dr. James Phillips 
was stirred to emulation by this, but proceeded differ- 
ently. He collected every cent of the needful money 
first, and had it in the bank before he made a brick. The 
Presbyterian Church was dedicated in 1849. Dr. Green 
afterwards became Bishop of Mississippi. He lived 
until his eighty-ninth year, breathing ever love and bene- 
diction, begging his friends and children to pray that he 


44 OUDGDAY S TIN CHAD EE EOI 


might not be having all his good things in this life, so 
happy did he feel himself in his lot. 

Professor Hubbard was another new man, and came 
to teach Latin. He was also an Episcopal clergyman, 
and was from Connecticut. 

Of the older folk one has been left out, Mrs. Nunn, 
who kept the hotel or tavern, and the student’s boarding- 
house, until the forties, when Miss Nancy Hilliard suc- 
ceeded her at this business. Mrs. Nunn died at ninety- 
two. She was a spirited old lady. She remembered all 
about the Regulator’s War, and said she had been on 
their side, “as good a Whig as ever hopped.” Here is a 
quaint memorial of her funeral: 

Do you mind you of Dr. Mitchell’s funeral sermon over 
old Mrs. Nunn? Full of humor it was, I do not say fun, but 
humor, Dr. Mitchell’s kind of humor, or humors. He was 
explaining Mrs. Nunn’s carelessness about religious matters, 
and ascribed it to her being married, a mere girl, to a man 
three times her age, who was soaked in the unbelief of the 
Revolutionary armies, taken by induction from the French 
Liberals. There are a great many curious connections which 


are not history, and are not biography, but are most interesting, 
though generally forgotten. 


These reminiscences, these chains of circumstances 
abound in Mrs. Spencer’s papers. Is it true that all 
interest has faded out of them forever? 

Miss Nancy Hilliard, who was in her day one of the 
institutions of Chapel Hill, earned an income of many 
thousands of dollars a year as mistress of the student’s 
boarding house. Freely she received, and freely she 
gave. 

She would keep the best table in the whole state, far too 


good, those said who did not board with her. She would give a 
poor student his board for months, or even for years. If 


A “YOUNG LADY’S” FRIENDS 45 


one of her especial pets got into trouble, she would put on her 
bonnet and walk over to plead his cause with Governor Swain. 
“You must let him off,’ she would say, “he’s such a little 
young boy!” 


There were a succession of village physicians, from 
Dr. Yancey who drank, and made it necessary to send 
sometimes twelve long red-clay miles to Hillsborough 
when someone was seriously ill, to Dr. Jones, who looked 
exactly like that handsome picture of Lord Byron, but 
who was not proud of the fact, and took offense if it 
were mentioned. Dr. Jones had been educated in France, 
was a remarkable physician, cool, taciturn and efficient, 
a hard student, and gifted with a certain healing touch. 

Merchants had moved in also. John Carr, father of 
Julian Carr of Durham, North Carolina, well known as 
a successful man and philanthropist. Then Newton, and 
Hargrave, and Mickle; names that come in many a time. 
Mrs. Spencer writes in 1890 of the methods of lighting, 
etc., of her youth: 


If any one would like to compare the domestic comforts 
fifty years ago with those of today, let him begin with the 
lights. In summer we had to go across the yard to the kitchen 
for a chunk to light up with. And what blowing and puffing 
to coax a blue flame to catch upon the candle wick, what dripp- 
ing of tallow and sperm before this could be accomplished. 
One tallow candle on the supper-table. Try it and see the 
effect. Two sperm candles in the parlor of an evening, two 
for the scholar bending over his books, and a tallow candle in 
a flat candlestick to run about the house with. In the blessed 
present I never see a brilliant light flaring that I do not feel 
sorry for the poor old eyes of a century ago, that had no such 
aid, not even the clear brightness of kerosene. 


The first stores were better stocked, however, than 
they would be in later days, for there was no way to 


46 OLD DAYS IN CHAPED Sai 


obtain manufactured goods save to wagon it in from 
Petersburg or Fayetteville, no supply save the stock 
which happened to be in the hands of the merchant. 
Among the candles and calicoes, Mrs. Spencer tells us 
that they even managed to sell a little general literature 
in one of the stores: 


On a platform down the middle of Newton’s store a few 
books were kept. Among them was Fanny Kemble’s Journal 
in two volumes. When my mother went shopping, she always 
took me to keep me out of mischief, and I would slip behind 
that platform and read this book. I though it wonderful, and 
continued this stolen delight till I had finished both volumes. 


Slaves were plentiful in Chapel Hill, for this was 
long before emancipation. Mrs. Spencer writes: 


When Judge William Gaston had dared to predict the out- 
come of slavery in his famous address at the Commencement 
of 1832, everyone applauded his oratory, but left his wisdom 
unattended. It is a curious process to leaf over a long series 
of newspaper files of the Forties, and later, to see how this 
“Peculiar Institution” came to be more and more taken as a 
part of the decrees of the Creator, and more and more defended 
as the years were added to the years. 


We have already been introduced to Aunt Dilsey and 
Uncle Ben. There were interesting darkies, college ser- 
vants, Davidge, “Dr. November,’ who had been Dr. 
Caldwell’s carriage driver, and had later, as he boasted, 
blacked boots for senators and made beds for governors, 
and even waited upon more than one President of the 
United States visiting Chapel Hill in his time. Then 
there was Dave Barham who served Dr. Mitchell as 
janitor for twenty years, and always recalled that he had 
never had one hard word from him. Quoting Mrs. 
Spencer: 


Pe OUIN GAD YS BRIE NDS 47 


Much of the high aristocratic feeling of the community 
found its home among the old slaves who had been in their 
places for half a century. It made them proud to see them- 
selves untouched amid changes and upheavals. They con- 
sidered themselves the Patres Conscripti of Chapel Hill. 


Once two old cronies had met, and were enjoying a 
satisfying gossip over the changes and the doings of 
their old home town. The daughter of one of them, 
reproving the pair, said, ““Aren’t you two ’most done 
talking it over by this time? Why, you have gone clear 
through to the niggers and the dogs!’” 

Cornelia Phillips spent her long girlhood with little 
absence from home. She came to be acquainted with 
very many of the best in the state as they came and went. 
She liked people, enjoyed traits and oddities. Character 
for its own sake interested her, and in her full experi- 
ence of all who frequented the University she was laying 
the foundation of her love for, and future service to, her 
chosen cause of education in North Carolina. She hada 
genius for friendship. In the first of her letters which 
have survived we find echoes of gay doings, jokes, seren- 
ades, picnics, wild-flower hunts, autumn excursions after 
hickory-nuts and wild grapes; with always mention of 
long walks at all seasons, a pastime as regularly followed 
as in Miss Austen’s novels. From quite early in the for- 

*In speaking of the negroes of Chapel Hill, Mrs. Spencer does 
not mention the one perhaps most interesting: George Horton, a 
slave, born in Chatham County in 1798, who was hired as a servant 
to the college, and who could write melodious verse. He would make 
verses for the students to send their sweethearts, fifty cents for an 


ordinary poem, seventy-five if there was a great deal of adulation 
included. (Family tradition. ) 


Horton could read and write, being self-taught. He published 
two small books of poetry before the War. He went north after 
the surrender with a northern officer, dying, some say in Boston, 
some in Philadelphia. One of his volumes is preserved in the Boston 
Public Library. Neither one is at Chapel Hill. 


CORNELIA PHILLIPS SPENCER 


A “YOUNG LADY’S” FRIENDS 49 


ties there remains a letter written to her by a girl friend 
who was visiting in Hillsborough, which says: 


How I long for the time when we shall reassemble in that 
“den” of yours, and talk over all our interesting adventures! 
You must treasure up everything funny. . . . It really seems 
as if more interesting things were transacting in my absence 
than in a whole twelve month before. 


It was a society of a “dozen families and their 
doings.” The first one of that jolly circle of intimates 
to marry and leave home was the second of Dr. Mitch- 
ell’s daughters, and it is to her that the succeeding two 
letters were written. In these girlish letters we can 
catch the gay insouciant atmosphere of Cornelia and her 
world at that time. 


December 7, 1844. 
My Dear ELLEN: 


I was just beginning to think it high time for that promised 
letter to be making its appearance, when on the dismal, first 
day of vacation Sam handed it to me: it is not worth while, 
is it? to say how pleased I was with its contents, nor how sin- 
cerely I hailed it as the commencement of a long and pleasant 
correspondence. Suffice it to say, that I read it four times, 
and expect to give it a fifth perusal when I finish this. 

I had followed you in fancy to your new abode, and helped 
you make your arrangements, disagreeing with you in one in- 
stance—as to whether that table should not have been on the 
other side of the fireplace! But I confess I never dreamed 
of anything half so funny as your sitting down on the floor 
surrounded with those mysterious male habiliments. I shall 
laugh at it twenty years hence. I have been brought up to 
make and mend all the varieties, and should have been as bold 
over such an investigation as possible. But I can readily con- 
ceive you, holding at arms length and viewing with a slight 
shudder some nondescript and then and there firmly making up 
your mind as to the utter impossibility of your grasping it inti- 
mately enough to put a patch in or a button on! 


50 OLD) I DAYS(IN CHAPED BIL 


As to the bottles of medicine, if they are found to invade 
in any inconvenient number your side of the room, I advise 
you to get a real big bottle and empty the contents of a dozen 
or so init. You will find it an infallible prescription for mak- 
ing them keep their distance. 

You were perfectly right in your conjecture about my part 
of the attendance at Senior Speaking. I could not make up my 
mind to endure it again, and so, much to the amazement of 
sundry staid at home those three afternoons and hemmed silk 
pocket-handkerchiefs. 

There were the usual assortment, some funny that were 
meant to be so, and more that were not, patriotism enough to 
keep the country from ruin for a century to come, and more 
“stars and stripes,” “revolutions,” “bloody despots,” “laurel 
crowns” and “tyrants hurled’? than would suffice for two or 
three reasonable outpourings. 

The students melted away as imperceptibly as usual, and 
by Saturday everything was settled down to the ancient quiet 
of the winter vacation. Is there anything new in all this? 
certainly not—but you must pay the universal penalty of en- 
gaging a correspondent from the classic hill—Something dull! 
I did go out as soon as I could without swimming to collect 
material for this very letter, but “deil a bit” could I find... 
Let me see—what was there?-—Mrs. Moore has gone to Pitts- 
boro for two or three weeks, and Miss Rebecca is waiting for 
Brother Hugh to come and take her home. Miss Pannell is 
here, and if you ask like Pa, who is she? I will give you the 
two answers he received. Ma said, ‘Bishop Otey’s sister-in- 
law,’ I said, “Miss Nancy Hilliard’s aunt.’”’ Then Mrs. Lucas 
and Mr. and Mrs. Ryan are moving to Hollands, and Mrs. 
Scott is not moving at all, and Mary Hooper is coming home, 
and Mrs. Swain has left home, and Miss Nancy Hilliard is 
talking of a “candy-biling’”’ and—and—in short you see my dear 
how we are overwhelmed with novelties and varieties and inci- 
dents. Another piece of news I have left out, is that the 
sun is shining out, bashfully and hesitatingly to be sure, but 
still shining, and that is a great point gained for people who 
have not seen his face in the last two weeks. I have heard it 
said that he will take advantage of the eclipse next Monday to 


A “YOUNG LADY’S” FRIENDS 51 


disappear altogether, and “leave the world no copy.” Ah! I 
see we are to have a splendid day, barring the wind which was 
so unmannerly as to send a man down street just now in a 
brisk canter after his hat. 

Ma and I took a long walk the other day to Glenburnie— 
Glenburnie no longer. Mr. Waitt has had the barbarity to 
clear the stream of those picturesque rocks, and the large one 
stands alone in the midst of the most insipid flat creek that 
ever rippled over a bed of fine gravel, and he has cut a road 
all along there, and so completely changed the face of nature 
that the place was hardly recognizable. J sat me down, and 
as a friend of mine once observed, mused at it. The glen is 
suggestive now of nothing but a carding machine for which 
it has been thus desecrated. No romance nor nothing about 
it. Apropos of romance, I hope you and your captive eagle 
(at your boarding place) get along neighborly together. Poor 
fellow! he must sigh for his mountains, and if he could do 
anything but scream at his fate, would no doubt beg you to con- 
sider how differently he would appear serene in solitary state on 
his native cliff. I am glad not to have seen him in his cage, 
for Wilson has filled me with unbounded enthusiasm about 
the “Lightning glints,”’ the “Storm wheelers,” the ‘Cloud 
cleavers.” JI do not remember to have seen the poetry you refer 
to, but Ma has, and she says she thinks you quoted it cor- 
rectly. It promised well, and I should like to come across the 
rest of it. The “burying his talons in his brain” is I suppose 
what might be called poetic license. 

Did you ever read the Fudges im rae One of the 
persons speaks of a serious cookmaid, 


“Of some sect 
Not particular I fancy in any respect, 
But desirous, poor thing, to be fed with the word, 
And to wait, as she said, on Mrs. Fudge and the Lord.” 


I thank you kindly dear Ellen for your invitation to come 
and see you, but why did you postpone my visit? How do you 
know, since things strange are constantly occurring, but that 
I may be at home myself. Just think of that, and in your next, 
be sure to ask me to come immediately even if you are board- 


52 ORD I DAY SUN CR AEE EVs 


ing! I do not think you will soon get tired of your present 
way of living, at least I fancy it would be the very thing for 
me—so delightful not to have to think, what shall we have 
for dinner. 

You see that I have written to Ellen Mitchell, and so far 
kept in bounds that if the Doctor’ should happen to be looking 
over he will see nothing whereby he might set me down for 
being either Red or indeed Blue. Give him my best respects, 
in which all the family join. Ma desires her love to you. 
Adieu, may you live a thousand years in happiness and peace. 


Very sincerely yours, 
CoRNELIA PHILLIPS 


P.S.—I do not think I have mentioned any of your family, 
but as I know that Mary wrote you this week, I did not think 
you in want of information, and I have not seen any of them 


for several days. 
CuHapeL Hit, February 27, 1845. 


My DEAR ELLEN: 


I have not the least idea of flattering you when I say that 
I am at this moment luxuriating in the notion of a good long 
talk with you. The sky is just cloudy, and the air just cool 
enough to make indoors agreeable. Pa has gone to faculty 
meeting, to assist in overhauling some unlucky scapegraces. 
Ma is sitting upstairs with Charles who childishly enough has 
thought proper to take the measles. Sam is in Hillsboro, at- 
tending his first court. I am alone in the parlour, before a 
blazing fire, settled to my liking for the rest of the afternoon. 

You know Mary Shaw is here. Well! what with walking 
and talking and no slight amount of laughing she and I bid 
fair to be quite intimate. She looks very well, and seems very 
gay, though that may be only a reflection from me for I feel 
that for the last few weeks I have been what the Highlanders 
call “fey,” my spirits are so topsy turvy. Ever since I was 
sick—now I see you looking incredulous, but I actually have 
been quite sick, and oh! sad to relate, was sick when Mr. 
Bridgers was here. When I was in Raleigh, he did not sc 


*Dr. J. J. Summerell of Salisbury, North Carolina, married Ellen 
Mitchell. He was for forty-five years a trusted physician there. 


A VOUNG TADM Sih RIENDS 30 


much as speak to me, and notwithstanding he was very profuse 
of apologies and regrets when he was here, yet I have a shrewd 
suspicion that he never would have called if he had not received 
the authentic information of my being safe in bed. I think 
you must have done him vast injustice by rating him of “third 
magnitude’ for according to all accounts first would never 
satisfy him. As to the wife you were speaking of, he has 
found her in one of those rich Miss Martins of Rockingham. 
He said he would come through again in April. May the fates 
send me another ear-ache about that time, for I can fancy it 
extremely distressing to be obliged to sit quite still while he 
expatiated on her charms and his happiness. - 

Did you see Mr. Hayes? I almost fell down with surprise 
when, a night or two ago, just after prayers, there was a knock 
at the door and I walking out confidently, expecting nothing 
more than a servant at such a time, encountered him. You may 
be sure I glowered considerable. He was very pleasant till 
the stage was ready to go, and then because he would not stay, 
I thought that after all he was not so very agreeable. 

What did you think of Mary Hall’s being engaged? Mar- 
garet talks very positively, and I—“Non equidem invideo, 
miror magis’—Spiteful? Mag reasons thus. Mrs. Hall and 
Mary have often talked of, and quoted a Mr. Harrington since 
their return. Rich too he is, and a sort of cousin, and is, or 
if he is not he ought to be, very much in love with Mary. Well! 
and then Mary has come back with a handsome ring, and. a 
new bracelet, which if he did not give her, I should like to 
know who did? There’s a clear case for you. Now though 
not gifted with as much clairvoyance as my friend Mag on 
this occasion, still I can affirm as to the existence of said ring 
and bracelet, and am tolerably sure that I should like to know 
who was the donor, for we are still in the dark as to that 
important affair. Give me the light of your opinion on this 
delicate point. 

Apropos of engagements here’s a wedding for you. Mar- 
ried by the Rev. Charles Deems, Mr. John Newton to Miss 
Nancy Utley—and that is all I know about it. I have not even 
heard what the bride was dressed in, charitably supposing she 


54 ORD DAY StI Nt CHAT Enhit: 


was better dressed than the lady in the song which is sung to 
have on “a white gauze veil and a green glass breastpin.” 

Mary Washington will trade herself away for a name and 
a ring on the twelfth of next month. Great preparations as 
befitting the noble pair. Julia Scott has gone up to do her 
share of the fixin’. 

Mr. Green received a letter from Mary Owen lately asking 
him for a recommendation to a school, and I have heard that 
he and Governor Swain talk of Saint Mary’s in Raleigh, where 
she might be teacher of something or other. I rather think 
it a bad choice for her, for even if Mary should be found 
competent to teach there, would she not be unhappy, ill- 
suited to so aristocratic an atmosphere? 

Next thing you hear will be that your sister Margaret is 
‘down with the measles, for after running all over town I hear 
it has put up at your house for a time, there being ten there 
to have it. 

Margaret has been reading Allison’s History, and Mary 
Shaw is to undertake it when she has finished. I do wish you 
could have seen Mary Shaw the other day, when Mag brought 
down the first volume, to show her the size and the close print. 
She stood them pretty well, but when Mag proceeded to inform 
her that there were four more, just such volumes, Mary broke 
out, “Now that’s too bad, for Maria Nash’s copy didn’t have 
but three volumes!” 

Mary Hall, Anne Swain and I having picked each other 
up at intervals along the way, fell in at Mrs. Fetter’s the other 
day, and while there, conducted a most edifying conversation 
trying to recollect instances of when most children had come, at 
one time. Mary knew of some lady who had had three. Some- 
body else told of four once upon a time. I said, I thought, I 
wasn't quite sure, but I had seen somebody somewhere, who 
said that once, somebody had had nine! 

Instructive, wasn’t it? JI came away assured that it does 
not always take wit to produce laughing. 

I hear my dear that you are inclined to “allycholy.” I 
ought to impart to you some of my present superabundance of 
laughing spirit. Don’t I beg of you, get into a low way. 
It’s a very bad habit, easily formed. I never did take Mr. 


A “YOUNG LADY’S” FRIENDS 55 


Bridgers’? word for anything, and shall not in this instance 
when told against the companion of my childhood. No never! 
But as I was saying, don’t get melancholy, or we shall send 
for you to walk with Mary Shaw and me, and we would put 
you in a fair way of recovery. 

I suppose you have heard of the grand row in college last 
week. The trustees who were sent for don’t seem to have been 
as hard upon the delinquents as the faculty wanted. Instead 
of expelling they only dismissed. 

Tell your sister Mary that if she wants to save the lives 
of several grey gossips here, she will come home and be married 
the first of April next, that being the day set and fixed for her 
by general acclamation! Ask her if she is conscious of owing 
me a letter? 

My best respects to the Doctor. Very sincerely and affec- 
tionately, 

CoRNELIA PHILLIPS 

Mrs. Spencer felt that she never made the fullest use 
of her opportunities, which seemed to her very great. 
Often she strikes this note, often she speaks regretfully 
of her lack of early development, both mental and moral: 

I hate myself as a child, I must have been uncommonly 
wayward. . . My youth was like waste-baskets full of 
trash. 

I was once as full of silly jokes as anyone. Some of them 
I remember and am ashamed of them! I prefer the under- 
graduate’s stateliest views on the probable destiny of the Eng- 
lish language, to his facetious description of a “coon hunt or 
a candy-pulling.” The truth is that few very young people are 
good at jokes. Let them beware of attempts to be comic. 

Mary Shaw, that dear girl friend of Cornelia’s, mar- 
ried in 1849 and very soon after died. This was the 
first real sorrow that came to sadden the youthful circle. 
Cornelia wrote an old-fashioned ‘‘Portrait” of her, and 

?R. R. Bridgers was a graduate of the University of North Caro- 


lina in 1841, a builder of railroads. He was from Edgecombe County, 
North Carolina. 


56 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


recorded it in her journal, and added a simple little dirge, 
or lament: 


’Tis June the month of light and bloom 
The month of many roses. 

I heed it not, the silent tomb 
Our sweetest flow’r encloses. 


The sun upon the rippling streams, 
Throws many a golden arrow, 

But Mary’s eye no longer gleams, 
The grave is cold and narrow. 


The winds are playing through the trees, 
That fringe the broad old river. 

Our Mary’s voice was like the breeze 
And that is stilled forever. 


Beneath this little poem is written by the old woman 


of eighty years, who was then living far away from 
Chapel Hill: 


Fifty years since I wrote this foregoing tribute to the 
friend of my youth. I remember her still. But so many 
losses and sorrows have been seen and felt in half a century 
that the grief that Mary Shaw’s death gave me seems now very 
faint. “All, all are gone,—the old familiar faces.” 


V 
CORNELIA PHILLIPS’ LOVE STORY 


HERE is just here a gap in Cornelia Phillips’ per- 
sonal records for five or six years, which has to be 
filled from others’ knowledge. Most of her circle of girl 
friends had married and gone. She herself was in a 
sense what we moderns would call a “College Widow,” 
a girl who had known and liked so many young men that 
she could not settle down to contemplation of matrimony 
with any one. Once she had engaged herself during this 
period, but she broke the affair off hastily, as not sure of 
her heart. She “experienced religion,” as goes the ex- 
pressive old phrase, at some time during these silent 
years. 

Both her brothers were married during this interval. 
Charles married the sister of Judge W. H. Battle, who 
was living in Chapel Hill as Professor of Law. Laura 
Battle was a woman of rare sweetness, a tiny fairylike 
person who preserved to the end of a very long life of 
care and motherhood her keen open-eyed delight in all 
loveliness and friendship. This is the “Dear Laura’ of 
so many of Mrs. Spencer’s most interesting letters 
throughout her life. Charles was married in 1847. In 
1848 Samuel married Miss Frances Lucas, a beautiful 
woman, also of excellent family. Her characteristics 
were thoroughly domestic. She adored her husband, and 
lived only for her family. These two brothers’ families 
were settled within a stone’s throw of their parents’ 
door. Their children were soon a growing tribe, for 
“Auntie” to pet, to cuddle, and to chide. 


58 OLD DAYS IN CEA T EIS BE 


It is the same Chapel Hill, only larger, and more 
prosperous. Instead of the hundred and fifty students 
of Dr. Caldwell’s best years, there are now four hundred 
and more. The faculty is three times as numerous. The 
village and immediate environs number two thousand 
souls. 

But the winds of change were blowing. The Phil- 
lips family, and indeed all the older folk of Chapel Hill 
were determined Whigs, but that Democratic party which 
Thomas Jefferson had started had finally captured the 
state and elected their first governor in 1852. 

In the class which graduated in the summer of 1853 
at the University appear a good many names afterwards 
well known to North Carolina people, and several which 
come continually into Mrs. Spencer’s later story; among 
them, most important, was James Munroe Spencer of 
Alabama, whose name she was to bear. This young man 
was a first honor graduate, although he had no oration 
assigned him at Commencement. He was older than 
most of his class, being only a few months younger than 
his future wife. 

Let her tell the story of their courtship in her own 
words, written ten years after, in 1862: 

I went with the children today for a walk, and coming 
back by the left bank of Tenney’s mill pond, I thought how 
when I last walked there it was a sheet of ice, covered with 
skaters. That was in January, 1852. Then and there I first 
got acquainted with my dear Magnus. We walked over that 
ice together, and walked on home together. I can recall our 


talk, and his looks and tones, so vividly. It seems but yester- 
day, instead of ten years. 


On April 30, 1862, she writes again: 


Nine years ago this day, Magnus Spencer and I took a 
walk together which ended in our engagement that evening. 


CORNELIA PHICEIPS LOVE STORY: | .’59 


He always called it our “courting day” and we remembered 
it as warmly as we did our wedding day. 


James Munroe Spencer, nick-named ‘Magnus’ or 
“Longus” because of his tall stature, was long remem- 
bered by his friends as a man to be counted worthy of 
any esteem. When it was asked of those who knew 
him whether he had been the equal of his wife in men- 
tality, the answer invariably was that he was a man of 
fine mind and character, equal to any one of his associ- 
ates. He was one of those who come into the world so 
well able to discern both mentally and morally that they 
seem to need little discipline. There are some people 
like that, and Mr. Spencer was one of them. Also they 
are said, whether rightly or wrongly, to die young. He 
was in every way a fitting mate for his wife. His family 
was respectable and had already lived for two generations 
in Alabama, so that they must have been early settlers 
in that new state. His talents were legal, and Governor 
Swain said of him that he was a most promising young 
lawyer. To judge him by the few mementoes that are 
left, his daguerreotype shows a grave strong face, with 
a splendid forehead, and already an expression of endur- 
ance, or of suppressed pain. His little account book 
shows an exact soul in money matters, and thrift was 
far from being a common virtue in the Southwest of the 
fifties. Sure it is that he filled his wife’s heart with a 
love for him that never abated. 

After he was graduated from the University in 1853 
he returned home, studied law, hung out his “shingle,” 
and found himself sufficiently established to return to 
Chapel Hill and marry his wife in 1855. They were 
married on June twentieth of that year. 


JAMES MUNROE SPENCER 


CORN ED TAP TOILET PS LOVE SLORY ot 


The young couple took a long leisurely trip to their 
new home, via Wilmington, North Carolina, by sea to 
Charleston, South Carolina, thence to Atlanta, Georgia, 
and up into Tennessee where they visited a married sister 
of the husband. They arrived at their future home in 
the early autumn. 

Greene County, Alabama, is half way down the 
western side of that state. The name of their town 
was Clinton, which is still a small place. James Spencer 
had several brothers and a sister living near there, and 
Mrs. Spencer seems not only to have been ideally happy 
with him, but to have enjoyed her new kinsfolk. She 
began to write long letters home, and the Phillips family 
must have found some compensation for her absence in 
these letters, so interesting and detailed. They were 
letters which whetted the appetite for more, letters which 
you could laugh at, argue with, agree with and which 
were treasured and re-read when others had lost their 
timeliness and faded out of mind. Her letters have long 
kept their qualities, and it has seemed difficult willfully 
to destroy a sheet of her handwriting. 

Wherever she counted a friend, she loved to write 
to that friend at intervals. But for these married years 
only a few letters remain, of the dozens she must have 
written. She says that she herself destroyed them, as 
being too piercingly happy, too poignant, to keep and 
contemplate after her widowhood. 

In quoting a letter from her to her sister-in-law, Mrs. 
Charles Phillips, we will first explain that in the fifties 
little girls and grown ladies as well wore visible panta- 
lettes, reaching to their ankles. These were considered 
entirely as objects to be decorated, and were dizened out 
with embroideries, braidings and what not. Ladies were 


62 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


always busied with their white embroideries, for these 
and other uses, because machines had not yet been in- 
vented to make such trimmings. 


CLINTON, ALABAMA, February 2, 1857. 
DEAR LAURA: 


I took dinner with Magnus’ cousin, Mrs. Parham, a fort- 
night since, and I told her I meant to write and tell you all 
about her, so that you might be as discontented with your 
husband’s wife as I am with mine, upon comparison with her. 

After dinner she took us (the ladies of the party), leaving 
the men to smoke in the parlour, into her room; and the con- 
versation turning upon embroidery, Mrs. Parham went to her 
bureau, and produced a good sized bundle, which upon in- 
spection was made up of worked bands; six pair of linen pan- 
talettes for her Laura, worked three and four inches deep, 
and a skirt for herself, fine cambric, worked five or six inches 
deep, with chemise bands and sleeves to match in any quantity. 
I could only raise my eyes and cry out, ““Who did it?” 

“Why I did it, of course, every stitch,’ said Mrs. Parham. 
“But when?” we all cried. “Oh at odd times, since the long 
evenings set in.” 

Now Laura, Mrs. Parham does every stitch of sewing for 
herself, husband, four boys, and a daughter; cuts out every 
garment worn by fifty negroes, and makes many of them; 
and she had, hanging on a line in a spare room, twenty pairs 
of stockings for Dr. Parham, and the children aforesaid, knit 
by herself, and no one of which had been ever worn, as she 
kept so much ahead of their needs in that line. 

Her house is as neat as wax, garden and yard ditto, lettuce 
and peas already sowed. Upon my word how she does it I 
cannot tell. One little thing she dropped gave me an inkling. 
Somebody, speaking of a late breakfast—“‘Dear me,” says 
Mrs. Parham, “Don’t you eat breakfast by candle light these 
short days?’ Well I suppose it’s drive, drive all the time, and 
that’s my consolation. As to reading or anything of that sort, 
if she ever gets through “Godey’s Lady's Book’ it’s as much! 


CORN TTA ETERS LOVE, SPOR Y):63 


Indeed she said, to me ‘“‘Cousin, I can’t enjoy reading—I have 
so much to do and to think about, I am really unable to fix 
my mind on a book.”’ I dare say she’ll be dead before she is 
forty, and then, ‘‘Whose shall those things be?” 


When the brief episode of her married life was over 
she looked over all these letters, in 1862, after she had 
returned home to her father’s house in Chapel Hill. 
She says: 


I have this day been looking over some letters I wrote 
home, from Tennessee and from Alabama. I cannot help 
thinking them very good letters on the whole. They recall a 
great deal of happiness. I seem to have been very full and 
minute in my accounts. 


Letters from her father, Dr. James Phillips, have 
also been preserved, written about this time to his daugh- 
ter. They tell of his preaching trips, of the events of 
the College, and in one he gives an account of the un- 
timely death of his little black cat: 


Among the deaths which have occurred here since you 
left, I suppose all have forgotten to tell you of the little black 
cat. I saw as I was passing Sam’s law office to college this 
morning, a defunct animal of the feline species, resembling 
ours, and subsequently I saw it thrown out into the street. I 
suspected what had occurred was that Badger’s sons, who 
room at the office, had perpetrated felicide; and as his black- 
ness has not shown himself at the table or on the premises 
since, I apprehend that he has died by the hand of violence. 

He had a fine black coat, long sharp claws, ate everything 
you gave him, loved me, bore ill will to mice and other cats, 
and as for courage, no cat could be less puss-tll-animous than 
he. Peace to his ashes! 


The Phillips family were lovers of cats, and one after 
another petted, disdainful pussies are delineated as regu- 
lar cat characters in Mrs. Spencer’s correspondence. 


64 OR DEDAYS (HNC HOxt ih eri 


Governor Swain writes long letters to her, beginning 
formally, ““Dear Madam,” telling how no one can fill up 
the diplomas as she used to do, of how Everett has visited 
Chapel Hill, and complimented the University, and later, 
how Buchanan was to be present at the Commencement 
of 1859, and how wonderfully everything in Chapel Hill 
was improving, how “the village in my cruises around it, 
I find looking better than I have ever seen it before.” 

In the second letter at hand from her new home she 
is writing to Mrs. Charles Phillips: 


CLINTON, ALABAMA, December, 1858. 


These planters live right well in some respects, 
and in others don’t live at all. I was at a dinner at Col. M—’s. 
Well! Silver and china and cut glass and turkey and jelly and 
what-not on the table, and such holes in the wall of the house 
all around where the chinking had fallen from between the logs, 
that I couldn’t sit still, but kept on shaking all over like a dog, 
all the time I was there. No carpets on the floors of course. 
Dear Laura, it is a fact that I have often much ado to keep 
my face from expressing my thoughts, my surprise and my 
discomfiture at so many things I see. At cousin Sue’s silver 
and china, (solid silver casters these folks have, they don’t 
think anything of seventy-five dollars for a caster), fine table 
linen, and again, not a carpet anywhere on the premises. 
Plastering, (this is a frame house) fallen down anywhere— 
holes in the walls, holes under the doors, holes in the windows, 
and at Col. M—’s window curtains flapping in the breeze, and 
a roaring fire in the great fireplaces. I know I show my un- 
easiness. I shake and tremble, and get quite blue with the 
cold, and the people seem concerned and say they are afraid I 
feel the draught. I don’t do anything else! 

Now don’t think I am exaggerating. When I first came 
here and noticed these things I didn’t mention them at home, 
for I believe I was ashamed of them! but since I am getting 
more native as it were, I don’t mind, I speak of these little 
discrepancies. I can laugh at them myself. At first they really 


CORNEILVAC PHILLIPS LOVE STORY 65 


shocked me. Most of the rich people who settled here when it 
was all new had to live in log houses, perforce. Now they 
are old and rich, they think the log houses will still do well 
enough with a little addition here and there. When a daughter 
comes home from boarding school, she will insist on a carpet 
for the parlour, and a piano, and that’s as much. Some of the 
houses in this neighborhood are good. Mrs. Adams’ and Dr. 
Spencer’s. 


In the letters of the last three years of her married 
life occur continual references to her husband’s failing 
health. “Magnus is not very well these few days past,”’ 
“This morning Magnus looked miserable,” come as early 
as 1857. Each letter written from Chapel Hill to her 
refers to the sickness of her husband, who is becoming 
progressively more and more disabled. “My regards to 
Longus. I shall be glad to hear he is better, these spinal 
lesions are hard to explain.” 

At one time was discussed an enforced move to a 
healthier climate, but later they recognized the useless- 
ness of leaving their home. Magnus Spencer had what 
was then a most mysterious ailment. It would now prob- 
ably be called tuberculosis of the spine. 

In the year 1859 was written the only letter remain- 
ing in these files from the young husband. He is an- 
nouncing the birth of a grand-daughter and namesake 
to Mrs. James Phillips: Julia James Spencer, born at 
Clinton, Alabama, June 1, 1859: 


I suppose that Cornelia and myself are responsible, and we 
hope that all whom it may concern in and about Chapel Hill 
will be as well pleased as we are. . . . Cornelia is a little 
disappointed about the sex of the little stranger. She had 
labelled it James Phillips. As for myself, a girl is as good 
as a boy, any day. 


66 OUD DAYS TN CHAP ED HINT: 


This news seems to be meant as a surprise to the folks, 
for he adds: “Cornelia kept her own counsel in order to 
keep you from anxiety on her account. She has been 
perfectly well through the whole of it.” In closing he 
describes his own health as “still feeble, but I can still 
scramble about.” 

When little “June” Spencer was nine months old, a 
letter written as from the baby to her cousin, Mrs. Spen- 
cer’s eldest niece, was sent home. We will add it as an 
example of a letter written to please a child: 


CLINTON, ALABAMA, March, 1860. 


My pEAR Cousin, Mary CATHERINE PHILLIPS: 


My mama had me in her lap, on the steps at the front gate, 
and my nurse Callie had gone down street; but presently I 
saw her, coming along by the garden fence, and I jumped 
and called her, and she came. She gave my mama a little 
letter, and my Mama looked at it, and laughed, and took me, 
and shook me, and put it into my hand, and said it was for me. 

Now I never had a letter before in all my life, and I am 
nine months old. My Mama carried me and my letter in to 
where my Papa was, and showed it to him, and they both read 
it, and laughed and told me it was from you. They told me 
I must write back, and tell you I was ace to get it, and say 
you must write to me again. 

I liked your letter very much. I want to come and see your 
play house, and your big doll, and Cousin Jim, and Cousin 
Will, and Cousin Alexander, and Cousin Cornie and Cousin 
John. Mama says she will take me to see you, and I am 
coming. 

I could smell the violets in your letter before it was open. 
I go out every day and get a bunch of flowers for my poor 
sick Papa, and I gave your violets to him too. I brought 
him some yellow jasmine and he was glad to get it. He said 
to my Mama, “It makes me think of courting’ whatever 
courting is, I don’t know. My poor Papa, he lies down all 


CORN EUTACPITEL LIPS LOVE STORY) (67 


day, and cannot take me in his arms, nor walk about with me, 
and show me the little white snow-drops, and the baby rose- 
buds, like my Mama can. But I sit on the bed by him, I 
talk all I know to him, and open my mouth wide for him to 
pull my toosies out, and I pat-a-cake for him, and when my 
Mama makes something good, in a tumbler, for him, with a 
spoon in it, and sugar at the bottom, he always gives me some. 
I love the sugar at the bottom dearly. 

I go every day to see Isabella milk the cow. It is my cow, 
and the calf, Alfred, is my calf. I have a white drake named 
Andrew, and his wife is named Phoebe. My turkey hen is 
named Ferebee, and my kitten is named Simmy. I have a box 
where I keep all my playthings, and I sit on the floor and pull 
them out all around me. [ve got a little tiny gourd, an ear 
of corn, a big marble, and a big old key, a pin-cushion and 
some empty spools. I love to put my hands in my Mama’s 
work-basket. I see heaps of pretty things in there, but she 
will take them away from me! [ sit at table when my Papa 
and Mama are eating, and I beg for some too, and my Papa 
always gives me some, but my Mama says no, so I never ask 
her. I look at him, and he gives me everything I ask for. 

I want to see my Grandpa and Grandma very much. I’ve 
only one Grandma, and I never saw her. Tell her I am coming 
to sit by her, and put my hands in her work-basket with lids 
to it, and pull out the pretty things. Mama says she wonders 
if there is any knitting in that basket now-a-days, and who is 
the stocking for? 

Do you know your picture is here? Mama looks at it 
and says, “Dear little Mary.” She says she wants to put my 
queer little face into a picture and send it to you all. But I 
am going to take it myself. You must tell Mattie Fetter I am 
coming, and I mean to sit on her Mama’s lap, too, so I will! 
And tell your nurse, Suny she must rub Baby Alexander up 
very bright, because I’m a real live baby myself, and I’m 
coming ! 

And tell Aunt Dilsey I love her right now, because my 
Mama loves her. She has got to love me when I come, and 
you must love me, all of you, when I come, and I’m coming! 
And tell your cousin Sue I’m going to put my ring, with the 


68 OUD DAYS TIN CHAPEL ELT: 


red and white pretties in it, on my finger, and come to see her 
as soon as Icome. I am coming, my Mama says, ‘‘When blue 
birds in the misty spring, and cloudless skies of summer, sing!” 
That’s my Mama’s song. 

Goodbye now my Cousin Mary. 


Your little Cousin, 
JULIA 


VI 
WIDOWHOOD 


Y THE TIME that “Little June” and her parents 
went to make the promised visit to Chapel Hill, Mr. 
Spencer’s disease had made such havoc with him that he 
was almost entirely confined to inactivity. She says in 
the journal of her early widowhood: 
This room at my old home where my Dear sat so many long 
dark hours so uncomplainingly, through the fall of 1860. In 
this room, at these windows I sit and think of him—think of 


the last days of his life, of his love, of his patience and gentle- 
ness, of his sufferings. 


Fie found the vitality to make the long tiresome jour- 
ney back to Alabama in the fall, but after this return his 
mortal illness grew worse and worse. Short rallies gave 
hope to his wife, who could not face the possibility of his 
being taken from her. Not until the spring was he finally 
given up to die, by his physicians, and not until told of 
it plainly by them did she realize that he was not ever 
to recover. In an entry, the last in one of her journal- 
books, dated March 21, 1861, this desolate young wife, 
just facing the death sentence and the trial of her beloved 
husband’s death, wrote “4d te Dominm clamavi!’ 

But not until June did he pass away. His wife was 
alone, far from her family and friends. She says that 
at first she could bear her sorrow better, because his 
suffering had been terrible at the last, and she wished 
earnestly for rest to come to his poor tortured body. 
Soon after, however, the full tide of her grief swept over 
her. Her great trouble came to her, in this strange sad 
spring of 1861, which, “besides innumerable violets and 


70 OLD DAYSIIN | CHAPED AIL 


jessamines, brought into bloom a strange enormous and 
terrible flower, the blood-red flower of war, which grows 
amid the thunders.”’ 

Although this couple talked much of the absorbing 
news, and agreed that there was more to come of it than 
people seemed to realize, either at the North or the South, 
Mrs. Spencer could not think of anything but her impend- 
ing loss for more than a passing moment. Her intense 
nature was living each moment full and poignant. It is 
the story of an old, old sorrow, but it drips with tears 
even now. 

Magnus Spencer had died on June 24, 1861, and Dr. 
James Phillips, writing on July 3 to his daughter, has 
just heard the news: 


I have this morning received two letters from you, heart- 
rending ones indeed. What can I say to comfort you? It is 
the Lord. He gave and he has taken away... . 

I do not know what course to advise you to take, save to 
beg and desire you to return home at once, if practicable. If 
you come hither at once you will have to trust much of your 
concerns to other management, but I would say, if you can 
make any suitable arrangements, do so at once, with as little 
delay as possible. An open house, open arms, and open hearts 
await you. 


But as late as September 25, that same year, she is 
still in Alabama: 


September 25—Dr. Spencer has been going over our pos- 
sessions to appraise them. 

September 29—These two days have been spent in a great 
agony of grief. I seem to be only just realizing my great and 
irreparable loss. 

November 24—1 took my child and went to Pleasant Hill 
Cemetery where they laid him. I stood by your grave, Mag- 
nus, and your baby has left the print of her little foot on the 
soil that covers you. I planted some of the shrubs and flowers 


WIDOWHOOD 71 


you loved so well about your resting place. It is the last work 
I can do for you. 

November 24—The time for my departure from Clinton, 
Alabama, where I have buried the hope and love of my life, 
is drawing nearer and nearer. I have been taking down our 
books, many of which have not been touched since his hand 
placed them on the shelves. Every one of them eloquent of our 
happy life together, the sympathy and congeniality of our 
taste. From them flutters now and then a scrap of paper, 
something of his writing. I walk about among our chattels - 
with a sinking heart. It is indeed all over, and life lies out 
before me in the future cold, and lonely, and blank. 

I do endeavor to trust God, to commit my way into His 
hand, but how can I prevent this awful sense of desolation. 


All through the life of Mrs. Spencer this act of tak- 
ing down the books from their familiar shelves, after 
some great change and overturning of life, haunted her. 
It is her emblem of desolation. Some think of the closing 
door, some of the shuttered windows, but she always 
speaks of the taking down of the books. One can watch 
for it. 

February 4, 1862—I have been away from Clinton now 
two months. I do not get used to the loss of my husband in 
the least degree. My tears lie as shallow as they did last 
summer. I wish I could believe that the dead are near us, 
loving us yet. . . . If Magnus can be the same spirit that he 
was when in the body, he must think of us. 


While Mrs. Spencer always resisted the thought of 
mechanical devices and professional mediums, whereby 
some hope to communicate with the dead, and while she 
felt unwilling to deceive herself with talk of such mys- 
teries, yet eventually she became convinced of her own 
communion with her dead. She believed that when the 
longing for their living presence became overwhelming, 
they did sometimes speak in the evening calm to the 


72 OLD DAYS'IN CHAPEL HILL 


hearts who loved them; did come insensibly and word- 
lessly to comfort. Many another has held this belief, 
felt it just as she did. ; 

She was all her life a rememberer of anniversaries. 
She never lost sight of the important mile-stones of her 
own life, or of the lives she had loved. In her late years 
her journal grows fairly stiff with so many jewels of 
remembrance. Each recurring wedding day she will 
note, and when she was over eighty, feeling the weight of 
years and thinking back to the past, she says of the 
twenty-fourth of June, then returning: 

I can see the pink cloud of crepe myrtle, the luxuriant 
shrubbery around the great old house where I saw my dearest 
die, the fields, full of cotton with blooms and opening bolls, 
across which he was carried to that country church-yard where 
all his family are buried. I see it today. I always think of 
him as young. What would he say to this bent, grey old 
woman ! 


May 31, 1862—What a vain futile life mine seems! When 
I look back upon it, mis-spent and wasted, and now my grow- 
ing deafness is enough to blast the brightest lot. My hearing 
is going, and with it, youth, hope and love. There remains 
for me nothing but to sit at home and remember! 


This is the first reference to her deafness found in 
her journals. Afterwards it became so complete that she 
was in a measure cut off by it. This gives us the idea 
how that handicap befell her, just when she would seem 
most in need of the stimulus of outside interest to help 
her break away from her consuming sorrow for her 
husband. 


August 10, 1862—This is Sunday and I sit alone. I do 
shrink from going to church, it is such a wearisome form to one 
so deaf. The great battles fought lately near Richmond, the 
death of so many friends, the universal mourning all over the 


WIDOWHOOD 73 


land have made me think less of my own grief, as if it were 
selfish in me to mourn for such a peaceful and hopeful trans- 
lation as my Beloved’s was, when there are thousands round 
me whose loved ones have died horribly in battle, or lain 
lingering and mutilated in hospital. If my husband had been 
alive and well during this war, he would certainly have been 
foremost in it, and I would in all probability have lost him so 
—suddenly and unpreparedly. So many of our old friends and 
associates are already in the world of spirits. I humbly hope 
and believe that the old friends have met ere this. 

September 7, 1862—The six years of my married life are 
sealed up henceforth. I have no one to recall them with, the 
happy adventures and incidents of those six perfect years with 
Magnus. I can see his smile, hear his footstep, recall just 
what he said and how. Such thoughts are continually welling 
up in my mind. 

September 25—-Today one year ago, I made the first entry 
in this little book by way of relief to a burdened heart. Why 
I write my thoughts I do not know, but it seems some relief to 
write them so. Today two years ago, Dr. Jones told me that 
Magnus’ recovery was “Not probable’ but I would hope, in 
spite of the Doctor. 


Here, beginning here, the thought of grief recedes 
somewhat. She rises a little above her suffering. Her 
little daughter, who would be her treasure, she does not 
seem to regard at this time with the feeling that she her- 
self was the one most necessary to direct the young life 
committed to her care. For some reason, although a 
woman of wisdom, Mrs. Spencer chose to distrust her 
ability, to suppose herself unable properly to train her 
child. 

But there was another young widow in Chapel Hill, 
with an only child. This was Eliza Mitchell Grant, a 
dear friend of Mrs. Spencer, and she had a little boy 
about June Spencer’s age. This little fellow died very 
suddenly, of diphtheria, and in mourning with and for 


74 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL. HILL 


his poor mother, Mrs. Spencer seemed to awake to her 
own blessing in having some object to live for. 

At New Year, 1863, she records in the same intimate 
diary: 

Nothing to chronicle all this whole past year but fretting 
and repining, more than I had thought myself capable of 
doing. I am cold and dead to all that makes the secret life 
of religion. I shrink from recording all this, but this year 
must bring me more peace than did the last. But what can I 
do, what can I do! I shall never hear any more preaching. 
I shall never hear Pa pray in church again! I think more 
of having lost my husband than of having lost my hearing, 
and the latter is in reality the more enduring affliction. 


By January 17th, however, she has found employ- 
ment. 


I undertook today to teach Baker Mallet, Hannis Taylor, 
and Stephen Skinner, boys whose parents are refugees here 
from the eastern part of the state. I was so elated to find that 
I could hear well enough to teach them. This employment 
will be the very best thing for me. 


It was during this winter that Mrs. Spencer began 
again to keep a book of extracts. This time she does not 
stop with merely copying down bits of poetry and prose 
which strike her fancy, she begins to write her com- 
ments on life and literature. She has found that the 
inner world of thought and reading, with some self- 
expression in this way, can be made in some measure to 
compensate for the growing loss of outside stimulus, 
brought about by her increasing deafness. 


May 6, 1863—The country is mourning the loss of Stone- 
wall Jackson’s arm in the great battle this week. 

May 14—He is dead, a dearly bought victory this last one. 
Jackson has been the hero of the war thus far. 


WIDOW HOOD 75 


So much of my life is dead and buried I feel sometimes 
half dead too. A sort of apathy and numbness possesses me, 
as if I cared for nothing here or hereafter. I suppose my 
deafness causes much of this. 

July 4—I went with all the children to Mallett’s mill pond. 
The girls all went wading, my girl among them. We sat on the 
bridge and ate plums. Governor Swain says he doubts if 
three-fourths of the people in Chapel Hill remember the date. 
I remember it in great sadness, for a great country torn to 
pieces and drenched in blood. It will never again be the day 
it has been to the country. Our children will not be brought 
up to reverence it. We will have no day for them unless it be 
the day peace is declared. We are not attached to the present 
government and perhaps never will be. The people of North 
Carolina will never celebrate secession day, at any rate. 

July 26—Chapel Hill is mourning now for the results 
of the great battle at Gettysburg. A number of the best boys 
of this place were killed there. Vicksburgh gone, and Charles- 
ton will soon follow. Prospects look dark for the Confederacy. 
God help us! 

August 29—North Carolina is seriously threatened with 
convulsion, and revolution in her own borders. One party 
clamorous for peace, on, it would seem, almost any terms, led 
by Holden and the Raleigh Standard, the other party as bitterly 
opposed to such views. 


Mrs. Spencer was even now not entirely awakened 
from her despondent musings by the need for helpfulness 
to all about her. She says a few days later, “I don’t care 
for anything that used to interest me.”—“I am neglect- 
ing my religion and it is leaving me.”—“I am not doing 
my boys any good, and I am without hope for myself.” 
This, however, was her last lapse. When Little June 
was taken alarmingly ill, her mother roused forever from 
her ashes. The child recovered promptly, but soon after 
came the serious illness of her old father. By Christmas 
he was up and about the house again, and had fully 


76 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


recovered, with almost his former vigor. The passing 
of this danger found Mrs. Spencer effectually alive, her 
resistance to fate revived, and she hereafter understood 
the need for resolute cheerfulness. New Year’s Day, 
1864, brought a solemn resolution: 


I will begin this year with renewal of service to my God. 
My deafness makes me live such a self-inclosed life that I was 
becoming torpid. I pray God to rouse me, and keep me awake. 
While Pa was so sick, my mind turned much on the selfishness 
of my life. 

February 29, 1864—I went to walk and sat by the “Roar- 
ing Fountain” on a stone, knitting and thinking. How time 
flies! Magnus will soon have been dead three years. I have 
not ceased to mourn him. I think my grief for his death has 
healed over. The scar throbs always, but there is no longer the 
bleeding wound. Looking over some old letters from Magnus 
I find I must destroy them. I seem only to have lived to lose 
him. There it was lying in the future, and I walked right 
down on it. I want to do all I can while I live to be busy 
and cheerful. Life can give me nothing as good as has been 
taken away. 

April 14—-I went with the little children fishing on Closs’s 
creek. They had a merry time. The smell of the yellow 
jasmine is good for remembrance. The suffering and want and 
grief around me is enough to shroud the stoutest soul in 
gloom. 

October, 1864—-Have been looking over and burning all 
those old letters. How much I have forgotten of what lately 
interested me and filled my life. Will my married life seem 
also after a little more time like a passing dream? [And this 
sentence bears a note added in 1886.] Yes, yes! There are 
times when I would not have it otherwise, but not always, not 
always! 


When a person has undergone, once for all, the deep- 
est grief, the most harrowing loss which could come to 
her, there ensues a certain cool, careless rebound of a 


WIDOWHOOD 77 


heart which is broken and fears nothing. The whole 
trial of these three or four years just passed made out of 
Mrs. Spencer a very different woman. Except for her 
motherly ambition for her daughter, selfishness was gone 
from her horizon. She complains no more of deafness, 
or of any personal distress. She might say, 

“Be done with your heart, and give it away, 


Then build for your hopeless soul a house, 
And laugh, and be kind and be gay!” 


It was this same summer that Mrs. Spencer’s hearing 
became so poor that she could no longer hear the church 
bell, as she passed by on the street just in front. During 
the next ten years she became progressively almost stone 
deaf. This condition had been produced by repeated 
head-colds, which she had always been subject to, but 
had not recognized as anything serious. There is men- 
tion of ear-ache in some of her early letters, and deafness 
was finally brought about by her chronic catarrh. In 
compensation for this infirmity, she became most alert 
in interpreting those to whom she was accustomed. She 
was an adept at asking questions which could be answered 
by a nod, or a shake of the head. She would state alter- 
natives which made only one word, written on slate or 
paper, sufficient to give her the information she wished. 
She developed a sort of sixth sense in this way, although 
her lip-reading was confined to her own family. Even 
her little daughter began early to communicate with her 
in writing if there were any privacy in the message. 
This growing deafness drove her more and more in upon 
herself, as was natural. It made her confide her feel- 
ings to her journals. 

In the first third of the volume we are beginning to 
consider now, one finds historical disquisitions, used 


78 OUD DAYS IN | CHAREE (HILT 


probably to instruct her classes; Biblical disquisitions, 
which only serve to show how inevitably religious term- 
inology changes for every successive generation. In 
spite of fundamentalists, who cling to old formulas, old 
religious commentaries are the most old-fangled reading 
recognized. But after the first third of this volume she 
begins to record daily happenings with candor and brev- 
ity, adding her comments, and, in that day of strong 
feelings, setting down her feelings about them also. 

The days were very evil, for the dwindling resources 
of the Confederacy were becoming known to all. Zeb- 
ulon B. Vance, the popular young war-governor of North 
Carolina, was standing between his state’s interests and 
the ever growing demands of the Confederate Govern- 
ment in Richmond;. thus filling as difficult a position as 
an executive could. The Peace Party were agitating and 
embarrassing him at home, and the military unsuccess 
abroad weighed heavy on his mind. 

The University had dwindled as boys went younger 
and younger into the army, until, from four hundred 
and fifty students of the years previous, the end of the 
war found only a score in college. In Chapel Hill, as 
everywhere, news was getting very uncertain. The news- 
papers did not publish news of disasters, but their ac- 
counts were contradicted by the so-called “grape-vine 
telegraph,” the unverifiable, but often correct reports 
which the negroes obtained by means of their own, known 
only to their semi-savage secretive natures. 

Out of the calm which later years brought to her, 
Mrs. Spencer comments on this chapter of her life: 


Reading the foregoing, years after it was written, I make 
the remark that we are more prone, in our writings, to put 
down our gloomy thoughts and feelings than our brighter ones. 


WIDOWHOOD 79 


It is necessary to take all this with allowances. I suffered 
much, and the Civil War heightened every feeling of despon- 
dency and gloom. But I had many reasons for thanking God. 
I had a good home. My Father and Mother were devoted. I 
had my child. It all seems wonderful to look back upon. God 
led me on, and “T shall praise Him again, when I pass over 
Jordan.” 


Vil 
THE “SURRENDER” 


HE SPRING of 1865 is coming on, and bringing 
into the quiet cove of Chapel Hill the first gusts 
from the universal storm outside. 


March, 1865—During the War Governor Swain was 
Chapel Hill’s chief medium of intercourse with the outside 
world. He was the only man who kept up correspondence with 
the men of action who were making history. The young men 
of his faculty had all joined the Confederate army. 

He would go to Raleigh and come back with all the rumors, 
with Governor Vance’s or Governor Graham’s latest opinion of 
affairs. We were but simple folk in Chapel Hill. I think we 
a trifle overestimated his influence and importance, and he did 
too. 

In the rush of national events in the spring of 1865, the 
strongest man among us was no more than a straw in a tor- 
rent. 


Governor Swain used often to come to see Dr. James 
Phillips and detail his news, and the three of them, Gov- 
ernor Swain, Dr. Phillips and Mrs. Spencer, leaning for- 
ward intently to catch the conversation, were to be seen 
sitting on the wooden bench that furnished the front 


porch. But except for the sad news from time to time of — 


some young man, who had enlisted at Chapel Hill, being 
shot in one of the great battles, there was no destructive 
evidence of the struggle perceptible, even as late as March 
10, 1865. 

Among the Vance Papers in the North Carolina Col- 
lections, there is a letter written to the Governor by Mrs. 
Spencer, begging him, in behalf of some poor women 
known to her, for a few pair of “hand cards.” These 


tn 


THE “SURRENDER” 81 


with many other tools and necessities were supplied to 
North Carolina during the Civil War by that vessel, the 
“A. D. Vance,” which ran the blockade from England 
many times, and brought them over. In response, Vance 
duly sent the cards to be given to these women, to enable 
them to prepare cotton yarn for themselves and for the 
Confederate Army. A few weeks later Mrs. Spencer 
acknowledges the gift, and sends to buy, in addition, 
“what ten dollars will pay for’ to add to the donation. 
Earliest in date of her own papers preserved in the State 
Archives above, is a subscription list in her own hand- 
writing, as circulated by her in Chapel Hill. It has at 
the top a newspaper clipping, reporting from Richmond 
that the Texan soldiers of several regiments are bare- 
foot, and begging in their behalf for socks. To this 
cause every woman in Chapel Hill must have contributed 
in money, yarn, or knitting, or any combination of the 
three. Mrs. Spencer’s own contribution is set down as, 
“Two pair of socks, one dollar, and will knit all the yarn 
I can get.” 

Somehow, as soon as any war gets under way knitting 
needles begin to fly in every woman’s hands, but in these 
lean Confederate days it was not only socks that were 
to be made, but all sorts of cloth and necessary clothing, 
with little knowledge, little machinery, and no experience 
with which to begin. Spinning wheels were brought 
from garrets, and whirred again, hand-looms clacked in 
many a home where they had never worked before. It 
is about the middle war period, in 1863, when little June 
Spencer is reported as putting on her first “homespun” 
petticoat. The plentiful tables of the pre-war South 
were soon reduced in fare to bacon and greens, or corn- 
field peas, until then considered food fit only for cows, 


82 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


served with fat middling and corn pone. Sugar was 
unknown; sorghum, with now and then a little honey, 
furnished the sweetening for ‘coffee,’ made of minced 
raw sweet-potato, parched brown in the oven and ground; 
while for tea they used dried raspberry, or ‘““Yeopon’’ 
leaves. It was a time of vivid imagination applied to 
scrimping economy, a season of substitutes, of bonnets 
braided of corn shucks, of shoes with wooden soles for 
home wear, to save leather for the army, of smoke-houses 
scraped for saltpetre to make powder, and of anxious 
economy of salt. At the end of the war years there re- 
mained no garment which had not been at least three 
times turned, and no child of six years or more could 
have told a raisin from a dried persimmon, or knew the. 
taste of “store candy.” 

In her book, The Last Ninety Days of the War tn 
North Carolina, Mrs. Spencer pays her tribute to her 
fellow women of the Confederacy, and we may be sure 
that her own ingenuity and industry were no whit be- 
hind theirs. On the 23rd page of this book she says: 

When I forget you, O ye daughters of my country, your 
labors of love, your charity, faith, and patience, all through 
the dark and bloody day; lighting up the gloom of war with 
tender graces of woman’s devotion and self denial, and now in 
your energy and cheerful submission in toil and poverty and 
humiliation ;—-when I cease to do homage to your virtues and 


your excellencies may “my right hand forget its cunning” 
and my voice be silent in the dust. 


In her own records of the war-time, however, it is 
not these privations and inconveniences that she notices. 
Her mind was on the real issues. She ignores these minor 
considerations. Her diary states: 


Even so late as March, 1865, the quiet and peace of our 
daily life in this secluded place afford strong confirmation of 


THE “SURRENDER?” 83 


the truth of Macaulay’s saying that in all great wars, it is after 
all but a small proportion of a nation which is actually engaged. 
I write now in the very crisis and turning point of our great 
southern “States Rights” struggle. The plough-boy sings in 
the field, the daily course of domestic life in general flows as 
smoothly as ever, except immediately in the track of armies. 
This winter Sherman has marched from one end of Georgia 
to the other without opposition, and this month has calmly 
walked with 40,000 men through South Carolina, and has 
taken Columbia—is now on the borders of our state, and is 
apparently about to march through it in the same way. Charles- 
ton and Wilmington have both been given up without a fight. 
The Southern Confederacy seems to be suffering under a 
stroke of paralysis. 

The end of the War would seem to be at hand, its result 
our entire subjugation, with all its accompanying wretched- 
ness. ‘This state is filling up with South Carolina refugees. 
What is to become of them, or of us! The last mad proposi- 
tion of our government—to arm the slaves—will only hasten 
the dissolution and ruin. I do not know but that the strong 
arm of the United States law and authority would be preferable 
to the miserable prospect in store for us under Jefferson Davis 
and his bankrupt, reckless crew. I have no confidence in them. 
I believe General Lee is the only man in whom I do place 
much confidence. But I do love the South. I did hope she 
would in some way compel a recognition of her rights from 
the North in this struggle, though I never fore-saw such a 
glorious future for her as our leaders and secessionists pre- 
dicted. I look at the prospect of Reconstruction with extreme 
aversion, and if the Stars and Stripes wave again over our 
unhappy land, I for one should want to leave it forever. 

I suppose that all this anguish, caused by the losses and 
blood-shed of this four years, will be as nothing to the pro- 
found bitterness of soul which will come upon us unhappy 
Southerners in case of Reconstruction. I have no doubt that 
to many of us death would be far preferable. I cannot con- 
template the picture. I dare not! 


84 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEREOAILT 


March 20—Sherman has Fayetteville, and we have heart- 
rending accounts of the destruction of private and public 
property in that town. No rights appear to have been acknowl- 
edged, no respect paid to anything or anybody. We appre- 
hend that his march will be directly on Raleigh. Women are 
insulted—outraged. Household property, furniture of all de- 
scriptions totally destroyed, provisions destroyed, negroes car- 
ried off, the whole land left a desert. All this we might endure 
if the end were to be independence of the South, but to endure 
all this, and yet be compelled to reunion. The thought is almost 
maddening ! 


Later: 


Troops have been hurrying down towards Raleigh all the 
past week. Those that have passed this place have been chiefly 
Wheeler’s cavalry. Our whole town turned out to feed them. 
The streets were lined with girls, offering smiles, food, and 
flowers. It gives me a cheering sensation to see so many 
gallant fellows—eager to fight and hopeful. But we fear 
they will be greatly outnumbered. In a few weeks they may 
all be retrograding in despair. 

I feel, the nearer the crisis approaches, more than ever de- 
termined to hope for the South. I must believe in her ultimate 
success. I cannot give it up. 

May 4, 1865—-The most remarkable three weeks in the 
history of Chapel Hill has just passed. Three weeks of such 
excitement as a century may fail to reproduce. During the 
first week of April we heard daily rumors and reports from 
below Raleigh, where Johnston with a very insufficient force 
was endeavoring to hold Sherman at bay. An engagement took 
place at Bentonsville, which, “though announced by our papers 
as a triumph for us, resulted in Sherman’s effecting a junction 
with Schofield at Goldsboro.” What a time of desperate hop- 
ing against hope it was for us. We could rely on nothing we 
heard. News from Lee’s army round Petersburgh and Rich- 
mond announced the last mortal struggle as begun there, and 
that we were successful so far. On Sunday morning, April 
Oth, Governor Swain left for Hillsboro, to see and confer with 


THE “SURRENDER?” 85 


Graham, leaving us all in a pitiable state of conjecture and un- 
certainty. Next day we heard he had gone to Raleigh, and 
next we heard that Johnston’s army was retreating before Sher- 
man, now advancing upon Raleigh, from Goldsboro. 

Soon this last was confirmed by the sad spectacle of our 
retreating army. On the 13th the soldiers and the supply 
trains began to pour through. What a spectacle for us it was! 
Still they were all cheerful, and still confident. Next came a 
whisper of Lee’s surrender—of the fal’) of Richmond and 
Petersburgh. 

Wheeler’s men and Hoke’s brigade, who were passing 
through, rejected it all as a Yankee lie, and so we kept on 
trying to hope. On Friday, the fourteenth, the renowned 
guerilla leader, Wheeler himself came in, and Governor Swain 
arrived at home, having been below Raleigh and had an inter- 
view with Sherman himself, and negotiated for the preserva- 
tion of Raleigh and Chapel Hill. This trip of Governor Swain, 
as related to me by himself, is one of the most interesting chap- 
ters of history I have ever known. He brought confirmation 
of our beloved Lee’s surrender, having seen the correspondence 
between him and Grant. At that news our hopes for the South- 
ern Confederacy died out. 

The surrender of Johnston might be delayed a few days, 
but was now inevitable. Our hearts died within us. Wheeler 
and his men laid low till Sunday, having pickets out on every 
road, and really seemed disposed to fortify the Hill and have 
a battle here. The whole town was busy night and day cooking 
and feeding the men. My heart yearned towards every one of 
them, though they carried off many horses and mules from the 
country round. ‘i 

Sunday, April 16—Easter Sunday—Wheeler called in his 
pickets and moved off by two o’clock, and that evening, after an 
hour or two’s silence and quiet in the place, a dozen Yankee 
blue-jackets dashed in from the Raleigh road and we were 
captured. 


Governor Swain’s visit to Sherman’s camp, just be- 
fore the advance on Raleigh, is likely to have saved that 
city and the University from pillage. He stood alone in 


86 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


front of the Capitol at Raleigh, and surrendered the city 
to the officer in command. Then he was in his buggv 
and on his way to prepare to surrender his beloved Uni- 
versity and to reassure the hearts of his fellow-towns- 
men. 


Monday, April 17, was the day when we saw the foe in 
their numbers. 

Kilpatrick’s cavalry, four thousand strong marched in. 
Guards were set at every house and we in town were treated 
with the utmost civility, thanks to Governor Swain’s personal 
influence. They remained two and a half weeks, and in that 
time the surrounding country was completely stripped of every- 
thing. Houses were ransacked and plundered; corn, oats, fod- 
der, flour, meat, everything eatable carried off. My soul sick- 
ened to see the marauders coming in day after day from every 
road, loaded with spoils. Much of what was so ruthlessly taken 
was wantonly wasted. The negroes and prostitutes round town 
were enriched with clothing of every sort, and food. 

General Atkins, commanding this brigade, and many of 
his officers, seemed to be gentlemen, and deplored all this as 
one of the inevitable accompaniments of war. They visited 
some of our families, and were extremely courteous, and were 
treated with courtesy. The brigade was composed chiefly of 
western men, Ohio and Michigan, and they talked moderately 
and generously. I saw none but privates, who all spoke and 
behaved well. Our guard was Oliver Fox, shoemaker, from 
Jackson, Michigan. But all their civility to us could not keep 
my mind from the country round us, where our friends were 
being robbed and insulted. I think I never spent a more 
wretched fortnight in all my life. 

Meanwhile each day brought fresh rumors. Johnston had 
surrendered—He had not—President Davis was a prisoner— 
He had escaped—Hampton and Wheeler and Johnston were all 
at daggers drawing—Every wild and absurd story was afloat— 
Davis seen sitting and crying in the streets of Greensboro, etc. 
etc. Lincoln’s death was classed among these canards, and 


THE, “SURRENDER” 87 


when his murder was ascertained beyond a doubt, it only 
added to the horror of the time. 

At last, on the third of May, Atkins received orders to 
leave for Greensboro, and the cloud of locusts removed, ex- 
cept a guard of thirty-five men left for the University. 

On May 5th came through Couch’s Brigade of Infantry, 
and we were supplied with guards till they had passed. What 
an imposing and affecting spectacle is a moving army. What 
sights have we not seen in this quiet and remote village. And 
now the war is ended. Sherman and Johnston entered into a 
negotiation which has resulted in the surrender of all John- 
ston’s army.’ Hampton and Wheeler, however, have refused 
to give up. Many of their men joining, they rallied round 
President Davis at Greensboro and are said to have effected 
their escape, towards and beyond the Mississippi. 

While the Blue-jackets were here, riding to and fro, tri- 
umphant, marauding, secure, every now and then came walk- 
ing wearily by squads of Lee’s army paroled—straggling home- 
wards—footsore, penniless, despondent. Many of them had 
no homes to go to, their houses having been burned, their 
families left houseless. My heart went out to these brave 
men who had risked all and lost all save honor. I ran out to 
speak to them in every instance, to shake hands, to say a kind 
word, to offer them something to eat. We fed a number of 
them. Our Michigan guard seemed struck by our feeling for 
them, and said it was not so at the North—that soldiers re- 
ceived little consideration. 

Some of Wheeler’s men were here, and when the final 
news of Lee’s surrender came as certain, said they had abso- 
lutely nowhere on earth to go, and knew not what to do. One 
of them said he had a twenty-five cent Confederate note, and 
that was all he possessed in this world. Lee’s men told us 
that for four or five days before the end they had lived on 

parched corn, and Major Stedman of Fayetteville said that 

* The final formal surrender of General Joseph E. Johnston to Gen- 
eral William T. Sherman took place at the ‘Bennett House,” a farmer’s 
home upon the highway, about two miles west of Durham, North Caro- 


lina. This ended the armed resistance of the Civil War, and a monu- 
ment has been placed upon the spot in commemoration of the event. 


88 OLD DAYS IN *CHAREDL HILL 


he and his men were so weak for want of food they could 
hardly sit in their saddles at the last charge. They all look 
wasted. 

Oh, our God! What sins we must have been guilty of that 
we should be so humbled by Thee now! I feel a good deal as 
I did when my beloved husband died,—as if something I had 
watched and hoped and prayed for so long was dead—was 
dead. And I had lost an incentive to prayer, or to exertion of 
any kind. 

May 7, 1865, Sunday—I walked this evening alone, all 
over the hill back of our house, where a regiment lately en- 
camped. Not a blade of grass, nor leaf of any kind is to be 
found there. The ground is stamped as smooth as a floor. A 
profound depression has seized upon me. I see before us only 
humiliation, privation, and a life of continued toil. The south- 
ern land is ruined for this and the coming generation. I feel 
the overthrow of the Confederacy as keenly as if I had em- 
barked in the cause of Secession with all my heart at first, 
which was not so. | 

The whole framework of our social system is dissolved. 
The negroes are free, leaving their homes with very few ex- 
ceptions, and those exceptions only for a time. No one has 
any money, not many have enough to live upon until harvest. 
No one knows how we are to be treated by our conquerors. 
We lie quite at their mercy. The whole of this so lately 
flushed, defiant, scornful, hopeful South lies prostrate, cowed, 
submissive. 

May i7—Governor Swain has gone to Washington in 
company with three other gentlemen so see what can be done 
towards restoring order, and obtaining decent terms. I hope 
he may effect something. 

May 1&—We hear that Vance is a prisoner in Raleigh, 
and also that President Davis has been taken. We must have 
been standing on very hollow ground all this four years past. 
The downfall has been so sudden, so complete, so irreparable. 
If I could, I would wish to leave the country for a time at 
least, but I have not the means. I must stay and work—work 
at least as well as a cripple can. 


THE SURRENDER? 89 


June 4, Sunday—Commencement week is gone by once 
more. What a sight for the old habitués of the place—four 
graduates, some ten or twelve students in all—two trustees 
present. Pa officiated in Governor Swain’s place. The Chapel 
audience made up of villagers and children. I went up on 
Thursday afternoon, and sat looking out the windows to 
where the groves stood as thick and solemn as ever. The sun 
shining through the great boles, and down the grassy slopes 
just as he used to—all that nature can do still done with order 
and beauty—But where oh where are the brave hearts that 
should be thronging these silent places! 

Virginia and Maryland and Pennsylvania and Tennessee 
are heaving with their graves. 

There they lie, rolled in their blankets, in their bloody 
Confederate uniforms, and for what,—that President Davis— 
our Soldier President as the papers delighted to call him four 
years ago, might be taken in his wife’s clothes, and carried a 
prisoner to Washington—that Holdent might be appointed our 
Governor, that the negroes might be freed with every circum- 
stance of insolence and violence,—that southern property 
might be confiscated, southern people cowed, insulted 
oppressed, robbed, all southern rights ignored. For this our 
boys have died—for this. 

The delegations have returned from Washington, Holden’s 
was triumphant. President Johnson’s proclamation exhibits 
no spark of generosity—The northern press is in full cry upon 
the South as she lies bound, bleeding, helpless. 

I can easily imagine that insanity is lying in wait for those 
who brood over the condition of our country, South. 

I will not read another paper, nor ask another question, nor 
think if I can help it, on public matters. 


In pursuing this resolution, Mrs. Spencer writes an 
opinion upon the southern literature of her day, which is 
worth quoting. She is reading whatever she can obtain, 
to divert her mind from these bitter musings. The reflec- 


1 See chapter xii for account of Holden. 


90 QUOD DAN SHIN CHAP B  Einut 


tions that come next in this journal show her as possess- 
ing somewhat rare faculties: 


Have been reading Leisure Hours by Martha Haines Butt. 
I was utterly disappointed, though I ought not to have been. 
I ought to know by this time that a Southern book is, in ninety- 
nine cases out of one hundred, the merest trash—the merest 
batch of blunders as to style and grammar. It is a very faded 
and feeble imitation of Fanny Fern. All her pertness without 
her ease, a would-be strained vivacity, utterly flimsy senti- 
ment—TI flung it down sickened to think of the unqualified 
praise I had seen bestowed upon it by Southern newspapers. 

Oh beloved and Sunny South, Land that I love, more now 
in the day of humiliation, woe, and ruin than ever before, thy 
day of regeneration and renovation will never dawn till thou 
hast learned to dig deep, and lay thy foundations broad and 
firm—learned to educate thy children thoroughly—learned to 
distinguish gold from gilding, silver from tinsel. 

Why—why are we fifty years behind the Northern people 
in our standards of taste—fifty years behind them as writers, 
thinkers, or workers. 

June 8, Thursday—I walked with Miss Nancy Hilliard, 
Jane Cave, and June down to Reverend Mr. Mason’s to spend 
the day. Very little pleasure, properly so called, but some 
amusement and food for curious speculation. Here are people 
who have had an independent and handsome property for years, 
living without any but the simplest comforts of life. “Com- 
forts’—I don’t call five, or eight, or even ten great feather 
beds in such weather as this comforts—not a chair but a 
split bottom in the house. Not a fork but a two pronged one. 
Not six tumblers. Not a set of table-ware of any sort. Not 
a carpet, nor a curtain, nor a napkin. Not one single article 
of luxury in the house. There is always something that chokes 
me about such places! 

There are good shade trees about, good grass, and a pretti- 
ly situated yard; but weeds in every fence-corner, fence high. 
You climb over a low place—left purposely, the rails worn 
white and smooth with climbing—into the garden. You find 


THE “SURRENDER” Ol 


there a wilderness of cabbages, and very little else. A great 
quantity of sage bushes, some mint, and lavender; a larkspur 
and a hollyhock or two. Rows of onions and a cucumber vine. 

Weeds everywhere out of doors, flies everywhere indoors. 
You sit about, go to the water-bucket every half hour for a 
drink, pick up an old fly-specked newspaper. You find a copy 
of Spurgeon’s Sermons, or Josephus, or History of the World, 
or some equally sprightly reading. 

You watch the chickens in the back yard with feverish in- 
terest. Your eyes stray away to the hot fields over which the 
wheeling turkey-buzzards cast momentary spots of shadows, 
to the wheat fields ripe for the harvest You wonder if any- 
body ever does ride along that hot lane. You ask yourself 
why people must build their barns and stables within twenty 
yards of their houses. You watch that black wench churning 
under the shade of the locust or catalpa tree by the well— 
you are suspicious of the cookery going on in that black 
kitchen, where you see more flies than in the house. 

You are summoned to dinner by half-past twelve. You sit 
down in a room containing two feather beds, an enormous 
chest, a loom, a red-painted cup-board, and an immense and 
exceedingly dirty fireplace. You sit at a small square pine 
table, sometimes used to sit on, sometimes to iron on, some- 
times to cut out on. You have a square of bacon in a moun- 
tain of collard leaves at one end, and an immense dish of hard- 
boiled potatoes at the other, with a tin pie-plate full of corn 
pone. 

A great negro woman, feet bare, sweat pouring down her 
face, and dress only partly pinned together and not overly 
clean, waves away the flies with a peach switch. The guests 
have cloudy glass tumblers. The mistress of the house, with 
her youngest child upon her lap, is accommodated with a tea 
cup. For dessert, we have cherry pie, crust thick and heavy, 
sweetened with sorghum, and plenty of milk. 

Thus we dine in barbaric state. The knife and fork taken 
from your plate is wiped on an indistinguishable rag at the red 
cupboard door, and placed with your section of cherry pie. 
You are glad to get your own knife and fork back, as it was 


pe OLD DAYSUN CHAR ALIEL 


an even chance she had not wiped your neighbor’s for you. 
You feel a sort of attachment for it, still warm and greasy, 
after your play with the bacon and greens. 

In this way live thousands of our Southern people, whom 
the Northern people perchance have envied because they have 
negroes to wait on them. How many such a meal have I 
eaten. Its only good side is that you are always welcome, 
heartily welcome. There is no embarrassment, no apology; 
everything about the house is at your service, and your visit 
is taken as a compliment. You leave pleased with the simpli- 
city of the hospitality. 

July, 1865—I suppose that everybody, even the lowest and 
most apparently hopeless, has a secret undefined hope or be- 
lief of being something better before life ends—they are not 
to go on forever in the same dull track, and it is this secret 
castle building that helps one over many a rough place. Now 
and then one sees the common sense of it, sees the long plain 
way ahead. Suddenly and for a few moments one realizes 
that for him there is only hard work, poor fare, and common- 
place incidents; that others may ride in their carriages, enter- 
tain, spend, give, but for them nothing of the sort. As they 
worked and saved and pinched and contrived last year to make 
ends meet, so they will do this year, and the next—die doing 
so. But God has ordained that happiness shall always attend 
on earnest honest endeavor. I believe one can find as hearty a 
pleasure in turning upside down, and inside out, an old dress, 
and thereby making a fairly respectable new one, as in pur- 
chasing from a full purse a costly importation. But we must 
not make comparisons. I cannot believe that happiness is as 
unequally divided as luxuries. 


And though behind me now is closed 
The youthful paradise of love, 

Yet I can bless with soul composed 
The wanderers in that happy grove. 


What God means for the black race, who can foresee. The 
change has come in their civil status. We at the South have 
nothing to crow over for these unfortunates. 


THE “SURRENDER” 93 


In 1864 I read Bishop Hopkins’ book on slavery. He took 
the ground that we have the right to hold the sons of Ham 
in bondage, arguing from Noah’s prophecy. Fancy a besotted, 
grinding, hardfisted slave driver taking up a high moral tone 
as one of God’s accredited agents! 

With all this, I believe in God. I am not able to argue 
upon it. God is good whatever happens. He cannot do wrong. 
I trust in Him. I should be upheld by this in the hour of 
death, in the day of judgment. Let me have that anchor, and 
with joy shall I lift up my head. 

But I feel sometimes such an impatience of my life and 
its narrow lot as I can scarcely describe. I want to go and 
see something better than I have known. From my window 
I see a pretty little near view, a vista of hills and woods, nar- 
row and noways uncommon; but that sets me longing for 
wide rivers rolling among mountains, for lakes, parks, and 
some of the beautiful scenery that is so lavishly scattered in 
some parts of the world, but of which this part presents so 
little. I want to go, to take wings and fly and leave these 
sordid occupations. ‘Faithful in a few things,’ I need to 
have that rung in my ears every day. 

I think sometimes it is cruel to cultivate tastes that are 
never to be gratified in this world, to learn a preference for 
beauties and elegancies and refinements that one is never to 
behold. 

Condemned by fortune to a narrow sphere, why not learn 
to think that is best. 

I have been all my life bringing myself to see and acknowl- 
edge the inevitable, to accept it, for if we have not what we 
like, we must like what we have. I am not unhappy—but oh, I 
could be so much more happy! 

These feelings surge up, but I believe I do generally go 
back to my work, deeply humble, and thankful that I have my 
work, and that I can go to it. But I cannot help feeling 
that there are some rooms vacant and closed, some faculties 
rusting, some feelings getting narrowed. My life is passing in 
a closed circle of ideas, and some of its most precious faculties 
are being wasted. 


VIII 


ELEANOR SWAIN’S STORY, A ROMANCE 
OF THE SURRENDER 


PON the arrival of General Smith B. Atkins of 

Illinois in command of his brigade, to occupy 
Chapel Hill, there occurred in this same spring of the 
surrender: 


A bit of by-play such as all Governor Swain’s most saga- 
cious prevision could never have anticipated. 

General Atkins, who was a fine looking man of thirty, called 
upon the Governor a day or two after his arrival. He was 
politely received as he would have been at any house in the 
place, for the news of the assassination of President Lincoln 
had just arrived, and none of us knew what the fury of an 
enraged army might prompt them to do. Our heads were in 
the lion’s mouth, and it behooved us to be careful. 

In the course of the conversation, Governor Swain, want- 
ing to show his military visitor Lord Cornwallis’ order book, 
stepped into the adjoining room and asked his daughter Miss 
Ellie to go upstairs and get the book and bring it to him in 
the parlour. 

The young lady did so, perhaps not unwilling to have a 
look at the Yankee General. She threw up her head and marched 
in with great display of hauteur. An introduction was un- 
avoidable, which was more than the Governor had intended. 
They “changed eyes’’ at first sight, and a wooing followed 
on that first meeting which greatly incensed all who looked 
on, including the Federal Army, and gave Governor Swain 
and his wife as much uneasiness as anything short of a death 
in the family could have done. 

While the army remained in Chapel Hill, though the Gen- 
eral’s surrender was obvious, no one could do more than specu- 
late upon the probable issue. Neither Mrs. Swain nor the Gov- 
ernor knew what their daughter would decide, because they 
refrained from asking her. 


ELEANOR SWAIN’S STORY 95 


Our military captors were very civil to the townspeople. 
They were under strict orders and behaved well. The officers 
called, and chatted pleasantly, and petted the children; the 
privates lounged in and out of the yards, and appeared in all 
respects like human beings. The guard at my Father’s was 
from Michigan. Every evening, General Atkins sent the regi- 
mental band to play in Governor Swain’s front yard, (across 
the street) in compliment to his mistress. Our honest young 
private was much concerned to find that my defective hearing 
prevented me from enjoying these serenades on the opposite 
side of the street. He came up to me one evening. ‘Can't 
you hear that, Mrs. Spencer?” ‘No not a note.” “‘Well I 
declare, I hate to think about it. Id give two hundred dollars 
if you could have your hearing.” 

General Sherman’s orderlies were coming and going, and 
one day they brought Governor Swain a gift from the General 
of a fine horse. General Atkins also sent his lady-love a fine 
riding horse. Considering the fact that these animals had 
been swept from southern stables, as in fact the soldiers said 
they had been, the accepting of these gifts was a great mistake. 
Three times this Sherman horse was stolen from the Gover- 
nor’s stables, and three times he pursued the thief and regained 
it. 

After General Atkins left for the western part of the 
state, Miss Eleanor Swain handed her parents a note in 
which she formally told them that she had promised to 
marry General Atkins, that she was twenty-one years 
old and intended to judge for herself. Governor Swain 
showed this letter to Mrs. Spencer, along with several 
from General Atkins to Miss Ellie, expressing his feel- 
ings in lover-like way. Here is a note from Miss Ellie 
to Mrs. Spencer, dated May 12, 1865: 


My Dear Mrs. SPENCER: 

I never was more surprised, provoked or distressed than 
when I found out this evening that Pa had been showing letters 
(to me) of all things on earth the most sacred,—letters written 


ASNOH NIVMS ZHL 


ELEANOR SWAIN’S STORY 97 


for me alone, and only trusted to my father as an act of duty, 
without the thought that any but himself should read them. 
It was enough to have him expose the first letter, but past com- 
prehension the second. It takes from the letters their true 
value to have them reduced to matter-of-fact, as much as to 
expose to the world’s eye the hidden treasures of the heart. 

As to what people say, Pa’s great failing is to care too 
much. As for myself, but one voice can prevent this affair, 
and that is higher than man. No indeed, I have all I desire— 
a most noble heart and mind intrusted to my keeping. I hope 
you did not think me so wanting in true refinement of feeling 
that I should have been willing to allow this exhibition? 

This note was written last night under the act of provoca- 
tion. I think better of it this morning, and send his photograph 
for your inspection—and a very poor one it is. The upper 
part of the face bears some resemblance. It was a gradual 
affair. Ellie is caught in her own net. I had nothing to hide 
when the Yankees came except myself. I had no fear of being 
stolen, but see the result! 


Mrs. Spencer composed a few verses, inscribed to 
Eleanor Swain, “On occasion of General Atkins’ Sur- 
render,’ and these are written upon the outside of the 
foregoing note: 


Let politicians henceforth cease to vex us 
With questions of disunion and debate, 

For the whole country now from Maine to Texas 
Has learned ’tis better far to love than hate. 


This boasted age of progress and invention 

In this our saddest day of war’s alarms, 
With closest scrutiny and strict attention, 

Has brought us nothing new, at least in arms. 


The best artillery is found to be the oldest 

And peace hath conquests too, by no means narrow 
The wisest soldier and perchance the boldest 

Yields to a pair of blue eyes and a bow-and-arrow. 


98 OLD DAYS INVCHAPER CATE: 


Sunday, June 11, 1865—Have just seen Ellie Swain 
dressed and waiting for General Atkins who drove into town 
a few moments ago. Dressed in a lavender barege and pink 
ribbons, with a pink oleander blossom on her bosom. So 
bright—so happy! Are there any days more happy in life than 
such? Has life anything better? I mean as to this world’s 
happiness. Soberly I think not. The brightest and sunniest 
picture is that of a young woman with love-lighted eyes and 
throbbing heart prettily and tastefully adorned and waiting to 
see her lover. I have a great deal of respect for true love and 
all his belongings. “Amo amantes.” 

August 19, 1865—Ellie Swain sent me a box of her bridal 
gifts from his friends at the North to look at—yjewelry, books, 
etc. 

Then I went down to see Mrs. Woods sitting propped up 
with pillows by the side of the cradle, with a peach bough 
in her hand, keeping the flies off her dying baby—poor little 
emaciated creature—and she herself as wasted. A sad sad 
sight. No one need go far to find contrasts in this life. . . 
Governor Swain was as little superstitious as any man could be, 
but he once said that the month of August was unfriendly to 
him, that every evil that had ever befallen him had come in 
August, and that he always drew a breath of relief when the 
month ended. 

August 23, 1865—We went to Ellie Swain’s wedding 
Wednesday night. Married in the face—in the very teeth of 
all this bitterness and woful humiliation, to the Yankee General 
who entered Chapel Hill at the head of his four thousand 
cavalry, April 17th. They fell in love at first sight on occa- 
sion of his first call upon the Governor, and now are married. 
Very few people went to the wedding, though very general 
invitations were issued, and a grand supper prepared. 

A few faculty families, Governor and Mrs. Graham from 
Hillsborough, and Betty Scott. It all passed off very well, 
whatever we might think of it. We enjoyed the supper and 
spent the evening pleasantly. General Atkins is a handsome 
man, rather grave in expression, sedate and courteous in man- 
ners. Ellie looked well—beautifully dressed. On the 25th 


ELEANOR SWAIN’S STORY hd 


Mrs. Fetter had a party for her; 28th Mrs. Hubbard had one. 
Same people invited to each. A good deal of bitter feeling 
expressed in the village about it all. Invitations were spit upon 
in one or two houses. 

The only way one can find an apology for it all is in be- 
lieving honestly in the love which appears to have brought it 
about. Let us think and speak respectfully of a genuine love 
affair. Since the world began this has been a wonderful agent 
for good—true love has done more good than harm. If this 
couple truly loves I have no fears for them. 

August 30, 1865—Ellie came over to tell us goodbye—left 
for Illinois at two o'clock. 


Among Mrs. Spencer’s records of Old Times in 
Chapel Hill there may be found a few sentences to add 
to this account, written at the time in her diary: 

This marriage was of ill omen to Governor Swain. The 
blight that immediately fell upon the University was directly 
attributable to the fact that he not only permitted his daughter 
to marry an invader, but that he gave her a fine wedding. It 
was told from mouth to mouth and believed all over North 
Carolina that Ellie Swain went to Illinois loaded with finery 
and jewels stolen from the women of states farther south, and 
given to her by her husband. 


Every person who had lost so much as a teaspoon by 
the Yankee bummers was anxious to lay it to Atkins’ 
Brigade, and to add to the complaint execration of Gov- 
ernor Swain. 

The latter thought simply in his heart that the war 
was over. The war was far from being over. The 
pendulum of strife and bitterness had many more swings 
to make before it died down at last into peace. 

The University had never been closed during the 
war, but now that all its endowment was lost, and every 
pecuniary resource wrecked, what was to be its future? 
In 1866 there were but three graduates, while Washing- 


100 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


ton and Lee at Lexington, Virginia, counted its hun- 
dreds of students. Governor Swain’s day was over, but 
he could not, would not, see that this was true. He 
labored to get assigned to his institution a proportion of 
the United States Land Scrip funds, and in this he was 
successful by his personal influence at Washington. 

If he could have lived ten years longer without grow- 
ing older thereby he might have weathered the storm, 
but the ten years were not to be his, and the rudder was 
not to be regained by him, now that the boat was adrift, 
finally and irretrievably. 


IX 


THE WRITING OF “THE LAST NINETY 
DAYS OF THE WAR” 


EBULON B. VANCE, Governor of North Carolina 

at the close of the Civil War, was a man very simi- 
lar in antecedents to Governor Swain, from the same 
part of the state; and while comparatively a young man 
at the time we are discussing, he was very closely joined 
to him in friendship. He too had been at college for 
only a part of the regular course. He too had been some- 
what irregularly educated, but this did not prevent his 
becoming a popular idol, and a man especially adored 
by the rougher men of the mountain districts, while he 
was almost as highly esteemed by the “old line’ Whigs. 
There was something intrinsically admirable about him 
because of his native ability, sanity, racy mother wit, 
and his genuine probity. His leadership during the Civil 
War and after it is still regarded with growing admira- 
tion, and he becomes more and more of a tradition and a 
memory. 

From the time of his student days, Vance had been 
an enthusiastic friend of Mrs. Spencer’s. Perhaps we 
have shown how rare was her faculty of making friends. 
She was the friend and correspondent at this time, and 
also later in her life, of most of the useful and prominent 
men of North Carolina who ever had been at the Uni- 
versity, both those older and those younger than herself. 
She knew them intimately and was intensely interested 
in their problems. They would consult her judgment, 
writing to her about public matters. Her acute mind 
leaped with theirs to help them define their thought. 


102 OLD DAYS TN CHAPPED BILE 


She made an appreciative and stimulating audience for 
them as they detailed to her their plans, policies, scruples, 
reflections, told her their experiences and outlined their 
sober aims. It was Vance who said of her on one occa- 
sion when he heard her called “the brightest woman in 
North Carolina,” “Don’t forget that she’s the smartest 
man too!” It was her gift of apprehension which made 
Mrs. Spencer the influence she became in North Caro- 
lina history, especially in that decade immediately after 
the War. Not that she meddled or suggested, but that 
she seemed to be the anvil on which many thoughts were 
beaten into current shape. The many letters written to 
her by Vance, by Graham, by Governor Swain, by E. J. 
Hale, editor of the Fayetteville Observer, by Josiah 
Turner of the Raleigh Sentinel, which will so often be 
cited hereafter, by Kemp Battle, afterwards President 
of the University, by dozens of old students on one pre- 
text or another, are still preserved. Less plentifully pre- 
served are her answers to them, but some are on file. 
The thousands of letters she wrote regarding the Uni- 
versity were strong arrows. She placed her shots to 
good advantage, as we are going to see by and by. This 
faculty of writing letters, which found their echo in the 
minds and hearts of men, was her only weapon. It was 
by means of this that a woman somewhat old and very 
deaf accomplished what not a man of them all thought 
possible. 

Just at this time, in the early autumn of 1865, Gov- 
ernor Swain, writing in behalf of Governor Vance, who 
was in prison in Washington, as well as for himself, 
begged her to embody her personal knowledge of the 
final scenes of the Civil War in a series of articles to be 
published in a paper called The Watchman in New York 


LAST NINETY DAYS OF WAR 103 


City. This was a weekly, what was called a ‘family’ 
newspaper, published by Charles F. Deems, who had 
lately been professor of rhetoric and logic at the Univer- 
sity of North Carolina, and who afterwards was for 
many years pastor of the Church of the Strangers in 
New York. This paper was short-lived, continuing only 
a year, but Mrs. Spencer’s articles written for it were 
collected and printed in book form and called The Last 
Ninety Days of the War in North Carolina. 

The idea in writing this book was to give an account 
to Northern readers of the real facts, to show that Sher- 
man’s campaign methods and those of others were 
unnecessarily severe and harsh, and to give as much 
well-authenticated personal experience as possible. It 
was hoped that some heed would be given to this mes- 
sage, some ground indicated for reconciliation rather 
than military reconstruction. Mrs. Spencer hoped to 
show that North Carolina especially had been sufficiently 
harried. After the surrender, Governor Swain and 
many another old Whig with him, who had remained 
staunch for the Union as long as there was a Union to 
be faithful to, wanted nothing but to rub out the score 
and honestly begin again. There was not the least con- 
ception in these men’s minds of what was about to come 
to the South. Vance writes to Governor Swain at this 
time, “The more Miss Corny has to do with this scheme 
and the less anyone else, the better.” 

The whole idea that the South was now to be scourged 
with scorpions, just after she had been beaten so 
severely with rods, only dawned on the minds of her 
people slowly. This was but the year 1865. 

In order then to write this book, Mrs. Spencer wrote 
to persons in whom she felt confidence who lived all along 


104 OLD DAYS "IN CHAPED BIL 


the line of march of the northern armies through North 
Carolina. She begged them for well vouched personal 
knowledge of what took place when the Yankees marched 
in. Her questions were very specific. One of these let- 
ters, at hand, shows how very little one part of the coun- 
try knew of what was passing in another part during 
that time of distress and confusion. We quote: 

Did General Stoneman leave Salisbury after he took it? 
Where did he go then? I have an idea that he came crashing 
down from the west to join Sherman somewhere in the center 
of the state. Do you know what his course was? Did he come 
in from Knoxville? This must have been the first part of © 
April, as Lee had surrendered. Did you know when President 
Davis passed along? 


The many letters received she used, weaving them in 
her own personal knowledge to make a continuous nar- 
rative. Parts of this were submitted to Governor Vance 
for criticism, he now being paroled and returned to his 
home in Statesville, North Carolina. He writes her, 
November 15, 1865: 


Here is a deliberate charge that I feel more consideration 
for Governor Swain than for yourself,—that I would hack 
and hew without mercy at your composition while I would be 
afraid to dot an i or cross at of his. You have reversed me 
entirely. Your style is very readable as everything that I have 
seen from your pen seems, if you will pardon my saying so. 
I am sure it will be read greedily by North Carolina at least. 
For my own part I shed tears freely over some of it. 


In the fall of 1864 Governor Vance, much disturbed 
over the signs of the times, had written very candidly 
to Governor Swain regarding the impending fall of the 
Confederacy : 


September 22, 1864—By the time that the President 
[Davis], who has gone to Georgia, displays again his obsti- 


LAST NINETY DAYS OF WAR 105 


nacy in defying public opinion and his ignorance of men, in 
the change to a still worse commander, the ruin will be com- 
plete. 

The sign which discourages me more than all else, is the 
demoralization of the people. Not a bridge has been burned, 
not a car thrown off the track, nor a man shot by the people 
whose country Sherman has desolated. They seem to submit 
when our armies are drawn off. What does this show, Gover- 
nor? It shows that the great popular heart is not now and 
never has been in this war. It was a revolution of the polite 
class, not the people—was fought at first by the natural en- 
thusiasm of our young men and has been kept going by the 
casualties and the brutalities of the enemy. As you know I 
am of a hopeful and buoyant temperament. . . . General Lee 
is a great man. Saturday night may yet come to all our trouble. 
How can I help to win the victory? Secure the retreat? Duty 
called me to resist to the uttermost the disruption of the Union. 
Duty calls me to stand by the new Union [the Confederacy]. 
The beginning was bad, but I had no hand in it; if the end 
be bad I shall with God’s help be equally blameless. 


About November Ist Mrs. Spencer wrote and asked 
Vance to allow her to use this letter. He consented to a 
part of it being reproduced in the Ninety Days but not all. 

FE. J. Hale of Fayetteville, in several long letters to 
Mrs. Spencer in the spring of 1866 dissents from the 
opinion of Vance regarding “the great popular heart is 
not now, and never has been in this war,” but he says 
further: 

I feel sympathy with you in admiration of Governor 
Vance. I have sometimes thought that young as he was he 
would have carried us through if he had been at the head of 
either Government or Army [Confederate]. The letter you 
publish must have been written at a moment of depression. I 


did not think he would have given way so. It helps up the 
prominence of the croakers who ruined us. I admit that the 


106 OLD) DAYS INVCHAPET HICG 


Governor showed sagacity and foresight in that letter, but I 
prefer the bliss of ignorance. I would never have uttered such 
opinions if I had formed them. I am glad you gave me an 
extract from his letter of November last. Some day I hope 
you will find occasion to print this extract. 


In the preface to the book made by gathering these 
papers, The Last Ninety Days of the War, Mrs. Spencer 
declares her purpose in writing this series: 

To do justice to North Carolina and to place beyond cavil 
or reproach the attitude of her leaders at the close of the 
great southern States Rights struggle. To present a faithful 
picture of the times and a just judgment, whether writing of 
friend or foe, has been my sole object. 


It required an innate love of truth and justice to say, 
so soon after that wild orgy of a conquering march 
through the center of North Carolina, that Sherman was . 
a great man at the council table, and that if he had been 
listened to by the Government at Washington, North 
Carolina would have gone peacefully back to work in a 
few months, to repair her shattered fortunes. This is 
the gist of what she does say on this subject. On Feb- 
ruary 12, 1866, she writes Governor Vance for material 
for the very last numbers: 

Can you tell me what was doing in the City of Raleigh 
while Sherman’s army was resting at Goldsborough prepara- 
tory to their move on Raleigh? A very comprehensive ques- 
tion, I know, but would it trouble you too much just now to 
give me a few points? For instance, about that Government 
property. Then about Governor Vance? What became of 


him, and above all tell me why he ever left Raleigh at all? 
Please reply at once. 


It required delicacy of a generous kind to reserve the 
facts which were told her at this time by Governor Vance, 


LAST NINETY DAYS OF WAR 107 


regarding his sudden and uncontemplated journey away 
from Raleigh at the time of Sherman’s nearing approach. 
She has preserved his confidence until now. -Vance made 
to her, as we may trace from her answers to his letters, 
clear statements of his difficulties with the President of 
the Confederacy, and told her in so many words of what 
happened to him during the days when his commission- 
ers, Governors Swain and Graham, had gone to ask 
Sherman, in view of the submission of the Governor, to 
spare the City of Raleigh and the Capitol. It is a tra- 
dition strongly credited that Vance was coerced away 
from Raleigh on this occasion by the rearguard of 
Johnston’s retreating army, and yet in her most confi- 
dential letters to the Governor she alludes to this but 
does not quite say it out plain. That Vance would will- 
ingly have returned to Raleigh when summoned by Gov- 
ernor Swain at Sherman’s request, and furnished with 
the requisite pass, cannot be doubted on referring to his 
own correspondence. Especially note the letters show- 
ing how he was deliberately left behind when he de- 
manded railroad transportation back, and being left, 
was thereby excluded from the final negotiations between 
Sherman and Johnston, after having it represented to 
him that he was to be present. We will quote the letters 


to substantiate this: 
April 25, 1866. 
GOVERNOR VANCE: 


I ought to have thanked you for your full and satisfactory 
reply to my queries, but I am so busy that mere letters of com- 
pliment may very well be postponed to the “good time coming.” 

I write now to take your opinion. Do you think it will be 
advisable to let on about your being hindered from returning 
to Raleigh? 


108 OLD DAYS TN CEDAR BE RRA: 


I am (in my book) now closing up the last few desperate 
days of the Confederacy, when the bottom fell out so unex- 
pectedly. What President Davis and his advisers hoped to 
effect by attempting to trip you up is what I cannot understand. 
Many of your friends, Governor Swain among them, have 
always regretted your leaving Raleigh, but Mr. Kemp Battle 
said it was very well you did. He said he knew you were 
prevented from remaining and by whom. Do you think it 
advisable that I shall state this much, that on arriving at 
Greensboro and finding the President gone on to Charlotte 
you would have returned and accepted Sherman’s invitation to 
Raleigh, but that you were not permitted by the Confederate 
military authorities to pass their lines? That you then went 
to Charlotte and had your final interview with President 
Davis? Were again refused permission to set out for Raleigh? 
I shall say nothing about your not being invited to be present 
at the conferences with Sherman. Governor Swain demurred 
as to mentioning the check upon you even in this general way. 
He is reluctant to make any exposé of President Davis which 
may irritate our friends the Secessionists who now agree to 
idolize him you know. I had a letter from Mr. E. J. Hale, 
in which he says that but for the croakers we would have 
succeeded! The Governor is fearful of my saying anything 
which may bring you into anything like reproach with these 
friends. 

I myself would prefer to state the whole truth. 

I am so glad I know now why you did not return to Ra- 
leigh, and I know there are many more who will be glad to 
get a hint of the reason. I agree with you now entirely. I 
never knew before the principle on which you acted. As it is, 
I am proud of you and want everybody to understand enough 
to vindicate you from the charge of folly: “Refusing to give 
up,’ “Running after Davis when all was lost,” etc. 

Mr. Hale demurred a good deal from my view of parties 
in this last number, thinks I was not fair to the War Party. 
Governor Swain thought I said too much for ’em, so that I 
feel like the old woman, sometimes I think, and then again I 
don’t know. 


LAST, NINETY DAYS OF WAR 109 


Another letter to Governor Vance along the same line 
of comment: 
May 4, 1866. 
GOVERNOR VANCE: 


I confess to you candidly, as to your not calling the 
Legislature, or doing something to avert our ruin, that it made 
an unfavorable impression on me, coupled with the fact that 
you did not return to Raleigh at Sherman’s invitation. It 
really led me to suppose that your wisdom was under a tem- 
porary eclipse at that time. 

Please don’t say just here that it makes very little differ- 
ence whether a woman understands anything about public 
affairs or not. I really do believe myself that it is quite as 
necessary for a public man to stand well with his country- 
women as with those who can vote and fight. An intelligent 
womans appreciation and good word is worth something. 

Not till I received your letter of April giving me an account 
of your journey from Raleigh, and why, why also you never 
returned, did I understand enough to do you justice. 

Governor Swain loves and admires you as if he were your 
own father. 

I used to wonder why intelligent men who had lived and 
acted through important eras in history did not oftener have 
their experience and knowledge of facts and events on record. 
I see now that it is one of the hardest things to write clearly 
while the actor’s minds are still heated and a thousand con- 
tradictory reports and views continually presented. Then 
Charles Phillips says I get bewildered when I try to conceive 
of how things would be if they were not as they are. 

Poor President Davis! What horrible days those he spent 
in North Carolina must have been! He seems to have braced 
himself like a rock—against all reason. 

I would like to know what effect a year of solitary con- 
finement has had on his reason. He was an honest President, 
though a very mistaken one. 


Governor Vance and Governor Swain were both 
opposed to the publication of the whole truth. Vance 


110 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILDE 


said, ‘“Perhaps I am over-sensitive on my remarks upon 
Mr. Davis being published,” and so that letter, whatever 
it may have contained, was not published. Vance was 
well known to his fellow North Carolinians to be a per- 
son obnoxious to the Confederate government, because 
not pliable nor enough subservient. Writing to Mrs. 
Spencer about the book which was now made of the col- 
lected sketches, in answer to her final request for correc- 
tions, Vance says on August 31, 1866, defining its 
quality : 

The real value of these sketches does not consist in string- 
ing together the prominent events of the War, in order; but 
in the graphic setting forth of the feelings and sufferings of 
our own people. This you have performed with such peculiar 
and womanly happiness that wherever you have turned from 
it to the recital of mere historical details, I have felt like I 


had got off the cars at Durham and had started in a miserable 
hack for Chapel Hill. 


Again, “It is a woman’s task, and I know of but one 
woman who could do it.” In view of the correspondence 
here given, the actual words published in the Ninety 
Days will be of interest: 

The Governor lingered in Raleigh till midnight, then with- 
out a single member of his staff, accompanied by Captain 
Bryan and Captain J. J. Guthrie, he rode out to General Hoke’s 
encampment at Page’s [now Cary], eight miles from Raleigh. 


Hampton and Hoke and Wheeler had all passed Raleigh in 
the evening. 


This shows that the facts were in accordance with 
the unpublished recollections regarding Vance’s being so 
to speak kidnapped by the Confederate military because 
they did not wish him to remain in charge. Again Mrs. 
Spencer says: 


LAST NINETY DAYS OF WAR 111 


General Sherman’s letter inviting his return to Raleigh was 
put into his hands and he was urged to return thither but he 
had just received a dispatch from President Davis urging 
him to meet him in Greensborough by returning train. 


These quotations may serve to show how difficult 
Mrs. Spencer found it, with the best will in the world, 
to get at and to state a small amount of truth. As re- 
gards the picture of the times, the book is veracious, and 
will surely be reprinted some day, although it is a rare 
book even in North Carolina at this time. 

Alone among the Civil War narratives it gives the 
immediate feeling of things, the hysteria, the fear, the 
uncertainty, the indignation, the sorrow, the despair, 
which succeed each other in the minds of the watchers 
by the hearthstone when an enemy army is approaching. 
The conclusion shows the real sturdy veracity of Mrs. 
Spencer’s preferences, and is no doubt in part the reason 
why the book has not been more esteemed in the house 
of its friends. We will quote: 

The time has not come for the southern people to estimate 
President Lincoln fairly. The smoke of the battlefield would 
have obscured his good qualities . . . He was always presented 
to us in caricature . . . but a sense of remorse fills my mind 
now as I write of him. The day will come when we shall 
frankly endeavor to understand and to do justice to President 
PICO anys 

I close these slight and inadequate sketches of a memorable 
time with the words of my first sentence. The history of the 
great Civil War is yet to be written. 


The book did little of what was intended for it. That 
it was written when feelings and perceptions were all so 
fresh is its merit. That it was so written made it unwel- 
come at the North where people had become assured 
that they already knew all they wished to know about the 


112 OMDI DAYS IN, CHARER ATi 


South and its needs, and were in no mood to revise their 
opinions. It was not much regarded in North Carolina 
because it was so vivid and so true. It could only be read 
with tears, for real pain, not the sentimental tears which 
come at the tale of “old unhappy far off things.” Poig- 
nant sorrows are better forgotten for a time at least, till 
the soul can deal with them more calmly. 


X 
JOURNALS AND LETTERS OF 1865-1866 


ESUMING Mrs. Spencer’s journal for 1865-1866, 
we find entries showing the lively alternations of 
hope and fear, the guesses and the misgivings that were 
felt before anyone knew what would be done in sweeping 
up the débris of the War. The freeing of the negroes 
was taken as a matter of course and really was some- 
what of a relief to those who did not know where their 
own bread and meat was coming from, and much less 
could feed a hungry horde of slaves. The removal of 
this responsibility for maintaining numbers of black 
children, who looked for support to those who had al- 
ways hitherto furnished it, was not a misfortune. 

The negroes of Chapel Hill began to stream off in 
numbers to other parts of the state. They had been so 
long subject to authority that the first evidence to them 
of their freedom was the power to go and come as they 
pleased, and this they enjoyed until lack of food made 
them go again to work. The entries from Mrs. Spencer’s 
journal are given in order: 

July, 1865—Governor Swain returned from the North this 
week, and I have had several conversations with him. He 
looks remarkably well and I think has returned a warmer 
southern man than he went. He seems to take pleasure in 
recalling how often he stood up for the South, and silenced 
her detractors. His conversation is eminently interesting. 
He was treated with marked courtesy and hospitality he says, 
and yet he is glad to get back to the South. The last four 
years have been years of progress, of improvement, of vast 
increase in power and luxury to the North. We can hardly 
form any idea of it, especially in our present low estate. 


114 OLD DAYS. IN CHAPEL HILL 


His judgment of President Johnson is rather favorable. 
A man of decided ability, of great firmness and decision of 
character, and little likely to be influenced by any man, espe- 
cially if of a gentle breeding. But he will probably act as 
fairly to the South as can be expected. The Governor dined 
with Horace Greeley, with Governor Andrews of Massachu- 
setts; saw Bancroft in New York, and Dr. Hawks. 

At West Point he associated with many military notabili- 
ties on the pleasantest terms; and says of all that the antipathy, 
dislike, indignation, and contempt, North for South, is wide- 
spread and deep-rooted. The most atrocious tales are cir- 
culated and believed about us, while nothing that.we can say 
of their misbehavior to us, of the ravages of their armies, etc., 
can get a hearing. 

I was greatly rejoiced to get from him an emphatic denial 
of the story of President Davis’ disguise in his wife’s clothes. 
Governor Swain was with two Yankee Generals who were in 
Georgia at the time, and they both declared that President 
Davis was manly, dignified, and impressive in the highest 
degree. The only color for the story of his disguise was that 
he had thrown around him an india-rubber over-cloak, per- 
haps of his wife’s, to shield him from the rain. 

Professor Hepburn writes from Carlisle, [linois, in the 
same terms of the bitterness of feeling, and adds, that as usual 
the women and the preachers are the bitterest, and lead in the 
fierceness of accusation. . . There were no demonstrations 
in this place to celebrate the Fourth. Vicksburg and Gettysburg 
were too near. Governor Swain would have made a little 
address concerning the state of matters, North and South, but 
he met no response and it was dropped. 

The negroes held a grand celebration at Hillsborough, and 
at Raleigh—freedmen, as the fashion is to call them. The 
Yankees are willing to instigate them to any extravagance of 
feeling, more I imagine to spite their late masters, than out of 
real regard for, or interest in them. Poor things! They are 
between two fires. How it will go with them in the future 
depends much on themselves. If they behave well, and show 
a disposition to exert themselves honestly, all good people 


JOURNALS AND LETTERS 115 


at the South will aid and cheer them. Otherwise it is a 
dark prospect for them. 

There are so many besotted, bigoted, brutish, slave-owners 
at the South who take this spoiling of their goods any way but 
cheerfully, and will need to be taught their duty in the new 
régime as well as the negroes theirs. At present all is in a 
transition state, with all the uncertainties, ignorances, errors, 
and discomforts attending such a state. Our Aunt Dilsey is 
still with us, but I do not doubt she will soon go. 

August, 1865—College opened this morning with twenty- 
two students. Governor Swain returned this morning from 
Raleigh, and I had the pleasure of hearing him talk. It is one 
of my few pleasures. He tells me the University has lost all 
its endowment funds—has absolutely nothing to go upon 
but the tuition fees. What is to become of the faculty, no 
one can tell. He showed me some letters from Governor Vance 
which increase my opinion of his sense and ability. Vance 
urges me to write for him a history of the last ninety days of 
the War giving full material from letters, facts, and exper- 
iences. Vance has just been released on parole from Wash- 
ington, as his wife’s health is declining. 

Governor Swain says the condition of things in Raleigh 
is even worse than heretofore. The despotism is harder. The 
losses are greater than has been imagined. People of the 
largest estates have been reduced to little or nothing, and their 
condition is most humiliating—condemned to sue for pardon, 
and through the hands of such a man as Holden. Though 
Governor Swain does Holden justice. Thinks he will do as 
well as he can, in the main points. 

We hear sad accounts of the way in which confiscation is 
being carried out in Virginia. Many of the citizens of Rich- 
mond are stripped of everything, all that the war had spared. 
Many of our wealthy landed proprietors are trembling, but 
North Carolina, bitter as is the cup to her in many respects, 
is being mercifully dealt with in comparison with Virginia. 

It is better in these days not to have been born rich, or 
provident, or influential. 7 

Governor Swain again spent’ an evening here talking of the 
state of the country. It is evident that he hopes there is a 


116 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


chance that Holden will be defeated when the state election 
comes on. Holden has certainly acted very injudiciously in the 
sweeping removal of all officers, from Justices of the Peace up. 
No other provisional governor has deemed such a proscription 
necessary. It looks as if he had spite against the state, in 
putting us to such unnecessary trouble and vexation. He cer- 
tainly is overdoing the matter. People are not so cowed as 
they were a few months ago. I look forward to our Conven- 
tion and election with some hope of an issue to our troubles. 

We have both a civil and a military jurisdiction in the 
state, which is doubly mischievous and irritating. Schofield is 
at the head of the military jurisdiction, and Governor Swain is 
inclined to think well of him. 

August 22, 1865—I have come to the uncomfortable con- 
clusion that the great American people are a failure. I see 
in these days so much meanness, injustice, servility, malignity, 
narrow-minded bigotry, and selfishness, envy, hatred, and 
malice, both North and South, that I cannot help thinking that 
we are a radically mean people. 


Does this pessimism recall to our minds the thought 
that was so insistent just after the World War, the feel- 
ing of all good intentions defeated, which we have been 
deploring ever since we lost that fine rapture of ideal- 
istic enthusiasm, somewhere between the Armistice and 
the end of the Peace Conference? Is this disillusion a 
part and sequence of all wars? 


August 26, 18S65—I have just read a long letter from Kemp 
Battle from New York, taking strong ground in favor of a 
hearty union with the Northern people, inviting and assisting 
immigration south, calling in capital, welcoming workers, 
opening up every source of national prosperity, and turning 
over a new leaf generally. It is all true, good sense all of it, 
but for my single self, I desire to have as little as possible 
to do with Northern people. My mind has not cooled down 
from the ire and agitation of such a war as ours. Business, 
however, must goon. The world is turning round, and though 


JOURNATLS'AND LETTERS 117 


my reason consents, I feel sad. I do not love my country. I 
feel as if I had no country to love or to venerate. 

I have just read Judge Ruffin’s letters to Governor Swain 
on the situation of the University, and his feelings expressed in 
them. Also his petition for pardon! 

There has been a muss this week between the young men 
of the town and College and the Freedmen, who were assembled 
in council to elect delegates to their convention to endeavor to 
obtain the right of suffrage. It was a general row. Heads 
and arms broken. Many fear the result will be a negro guard 
sent up here. Governor Swain goes to Washington tomorrow. 

October, 1865—Governor Swain returned from the North 
yesterday. He came over to see me this evening. His im- 
pressions of President Johnson are more favorable than on his 
first visit to Washington. He says, he looks “every inch the 
President.” The Governor effected nothing at all for. the 
University. There seems to be great ill-feeling towards the 
University in some parts of the state, on account of alleged 
Yankee proclivities among the faculty. Ellie Swain’s wedding 
helped this along. From a few of our reviving southern 
church papers I find that the greatest bitterness still exists in| 
the churches. While the politicians are trying to’ heal up 
matters and make friends, the churches are exhibiting the ut- 
most intolerance and bitterness. How painful, and how humil- 
iating is this fact! 

October 22, 1865—-Governor Swain sent me a letter to 
Ellie from General Wilcox in the City of Mexico, giving an 
account of his adventures from the dismal day of Lee’s sur- 
render, April 9th, till his arrival in Mexico. 

He went to San Antonio, Texas, and was there with his 
sister till President Johnson’s proclamation drove him and a 
host of Confederate generals, governors, and colonels. over 
into Mexico. Maximilian treats them all well. No doubt glad 
to see such citizens in his Empire. He has lately issued a 
decree concerning immigration, intending to coax people to 
come. Lands at Government price, five year exemption from 
military service, etc. Wilcox says much about the soil and 
climate of Mexico. Thinks it a fine country for agriculturists, 


118 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


but would evidently prefer this country. “It is the people 
make the country.”’ Very true! | 

October 28, 1865—-Convention adjourned, Jonathan 
Worth nominated for Governor against Holden. I see very 
little to choose between them, except that Worth is probably 
the honestest of the two, while Holden is the ablest. People 
are constantly saying, ‘“What has the Convention done?” I’m 
sure I do not know. They abolished slavery, cancelled the act 
of secession, and repudiated the war debt, at the instance of a 
telegram from President Johnson. I feel ashamed of North 
Carolina in some respects. She is always in the rear, no matter 
whether the tide ebbs or flows, and always contrives to get 
more kicks than half-pence. No state in the Confederacy did 
more for the cause than she, no state acted more handsomely, 
no state was more abused. North Carolina was systematically 
insulted by the general Government of the Confederacy as un- 
reliable, disloyal, and was suspected and accused of being 
secretly disposed toward reconstruction—this in the face of her 
efforts and her sacrifices for the Southern cause. 

Lo, the tide turns, the Confederacy is nowhere, the Union 
triumphant. Where is North Carolina? Favored in any re- 
spect?—-Not she! She has had the meanest man in the state 
set over her as Provisional Governor, who seized the oppor- 
tunity to humiliate her still further, and she is positively be- 
hind even South Carolina in progress toward reconciliation or 
reunion. Her newspapers are feeble, her convention servile, 
her people are cowed. She lacks that something of spirit, with- 
out which a state or a man may be thoroughly respectable, good, 
honest, brave, but will yet lack the glance of fire, the free, 
bold bearing that secures deference and a place above the salt, 
without asking for it. 


Somewhere Mrs. Spencer says that ‘““Merry Christ- 
mas is not hard to have anywhere. It is Happy New 
Year that brings—nobody knows what!” 

Little June has a more interesting Christmas in 1865 
than ever in her short life before. There is a charming 
letter from Santa Claus all in rhyme, written of course 


JOURNALS AND LETTERS 119 


by her mother. She also had in her stocking the first 
“store candy’ she had ever tasted, besides a real dolly, 
and a new dress which was not homespun. Here is the 
little jingle, preserved on a bit of Confederate writing 
paper, full of cotton fibre: 


Oh! little June! 

I’m just in tune 

For writing you a letter. 
This Christmas night 

The stars are bright 
Moonlight was never better. 


So here [ll stop 

On chimney top 

While all the stars are winking, 
And let you know 

Before I go 

Some things that P’ve been thinking. 


I think that soon 

My little June 

Will be a grown up lady. 
I hope that she 

Will surely be 

As sweet as any May-day. 


But oh! my dear 

It’s very clear 

That now’s your time for learning, 
For all the world 

Sees no bad girl 

Into a lady turning. 


So mind your books 

And mind your looks 

And all that is befitting, 

Your sewing do 

And drawing too | 

And don’t forget your knitting. 


120 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


Now down I'll come 

Into your room 

And never think of knocking. 
At you [ll peep 

So fast asleep 

And then Ill fill your stocking. 


You may be sure 

That I’m too poor 

To buy this dress or make it. 
“Aunt Alice” she 

Did send for me 

‘And say “Saint Nick must take it.” 


Now this is it, 

I hope ’twill fit, 

A royal dress and splendid. 
And you must go 

And let her know 

Her kindness can’t be mended. 


So now dear June 

Under the moon 

I’ve written you this letter. 
I must away 

I cannot stay 

To make it any better. 


Santa Claus. 


Surely the worst is over. Surely the lowest point of 
the fortunes of the conquered South and the impover- 
ished University has been reached. The journal begins 
the new year on a more cheerful note: 


January 1, 1866—The past year has been a memorable one. 
As Aunt Dilsey said this morning, “Thank God we are alive, 
and have got a little something to eat.’’ We have a new road 
to travel, and a pretty hard road it will be for awhile. But 
the South will be infinitely better off in ten years time, richer, 
happier than it has ever been, I do believe. God grant it, 
and God take care of the widows and orphans. 


JOURNALS AND LETTERS 121 


January 7, 1866—Paid a visit to the Di Library. While 
waiting for the key I walked up and down before the build- 
ing, looking at every tree and path with the same interest we 
look into a friend’s eyes who is talking to us. The natural 
objects are all there. The great oaks, the steps, the turf. 
Things are so little changed, and yet so greatly. I never walk 
through those grounds without pangs of heart. There are 
doors and windows where I seem to see a familiar face and 
form. Some things are immortal, and we never feel this more 
keenly than in such moments, looking at the apparently long- 
lived objects that stand and live and flourish while the love 
and hope and tender memories associated with them, the 
voices and faces that haunt them, seem gone forever. Even 
when nature mocks us with her immutability and steadfastness, 
compared with our changing fading dying lot, even then we 
feel that these things that surround us are nothing, substantial 
as they appear. Love is immortal. The memory of it is 
indelible. 

March, 1866—Fighteen of the Chapel Hill people have died 
since last March, not including negroes. 


Beside this she has pencilled the entry, that she 
wished she had taken time to make a full list at the time 
when she knew them all. 


Governor Swain returned yesterday from Washington City. 
Hopes that this time he has succeeded, but is not certain. Tells 
me many interesting items of Washington life. Says he owes 
his entrée to the presence of Secretary Harlan, in the Treasury 
Department, to a mulatto, who attended President Buchanan 
on his visit to Chapel Hill in 1859, and staid of course at the 
Governor’s. 

Governor Swain says he thinks President Johnson is in 
earnest to do the South justice, and will give her her rights 
if man can do anything. 


This was the time when Governor Swain had made 
his application for North Carolina’s quota of the Land 
Scrip. |” 


We 


KS 


AK 
\) \ \ 


GIG. Siig) 


JAMES PHILLIPS 


JOURNALS AND LETTERS 123 


In the month of May, Mrs. James Phillips, Mrs. 
Spencer’s mother, left Chapel Hill to make a long visit 
to her relatives at the North. Her family believed her 
in very declining health, and were very much affected on 
bidding her goodbye. 


I shed bitter tears when Ma left us. When she kissed me 
goodbye she said, “‘It may be the final parting, my dear, but 
it will not be long.” I miss Ma very much, and cannot bear 
to look into her room. | 

June, 1866, Commencement Day——Only three seniors to 
graduate, but a large crowd here, and many young ladies. Vance 
delivered the address, on the “Duties of defeat.’ Admirable. 
I hope it may help to do away with the prejudice existing at 
present against the University, and the faculty. | 


The Raleigh Standard, Holden’s paper, said about 
this time that the University was being reviled by some 
as being a ‘““Yankee Concern,” and by others as being a 
“hot-bed of Rebellion.”” Both of which statements were 
believed by different sections of public opinion. 


July 4, 1866—The negroes of Chapel Hill had a celebra- 
tion, and I made them a banner. Their choice in mottoes was, 
on one side, “Respect for Former Owners,” and on the other, 
“Our Hope is in God.” Colonel Guthrie made them an ad- 
dress. Jurdon Swain read a part of the immortal Declaration, 
and they all marched out to the dinner provided by themselves, 
and sat on the ground bought from the Craigs for their new 
school house. There they made speeches for themselves, show- 
ing a good disposition, poor things! I thought their proces- 
sion a right affecting sight. 

August, 1860—-A quiet summer. How often I may look 
back to these days with Pa and June as Halcyon times. He and 
she seem to be so fond of each other. They have long talks 
together on the piazza of evenings, as we sit by him, and he 
smokes his pipe. I cannot hear a word, but now and then Pa 


bs 


124 OLDVDAY St IN GCHAR ED Hii 


laughs and tells me some queer remarks of June’s. The Uni- 
versity opened with one hundred students, but at General Lee’s 
College over seven hundred applications have been received, 
and five hundred at the University of Virginia. 

September 4, 1866—During President Johnson’s late tour 
to Chicago, he was received at certain places with open insult 
and disrespect. With a mob at Indianapolis. It will end in his 
being defeated in the approaching Congress. A long letter 
from State Treasurer Kemp Battle to Governor Swain, in 
which he does not seem to be sanguine that the University 
will get the appropriation donated by Congress for an Agri- 
cultural College. If not, the University 1s doomed. 

October 20, 1866—Received today the first proof sheets 
of the Ninety Days. Took my first lesson on Laura’s new 
sewing machine. Also received the price of the first copy of 
the book, from Judge Battle. 

June’s little friend Beck Kimberly came and stayed with 
us last night. I slept in the next room. I had a wretched 
night. I do not like to think about my dream. I dreamed 
that Pa was dead, and my distress was as great as if it had 
been a reality. In the middle of the dream I woke up, and 
could sleep no more until day began to dawn. I have tried 
to reason myself out of my fright and anguish, in vain. I 
wanted to get up and go to him. I am afraid to write it, but 
I do think Pa seems not well these days. 

December 9, 1866—My book arrived today. I am much 
pleased with it, and the way it is gotten up. Very pretty and 
very neat. Governor Swain is unfortunately not here to re- 
ceive his copy. The surprise of the dedication was what I 
wanted, but I had the pleasure of giving my dear old Father 
his copy. Now if North Carolinians will only buy it! 

Great anxiety and uncertainty about the University. Gov- 
ernor Swain still in Raleigh. A letter from Ma gives me great 
uneasiness. I want her to come home, and have written her 
so. I think however she will prefer to stay there. She has 
never been happy here. I have often heard her say that when 
her time came to die, she wanted to be with her kindred. A 


JOURNALS AND LETTERS 125 


letter from Dr. Deems very gloomy. His paper is about to 
fail. Sales of Ninety Days very slow. I feel a gnawing 
anxiety about Ma. The year is closing, gloomily, gloomily. 
Governor Swain has to go to Washington with Governor 
Worth. Holden and his party are trying to get the state under 
territorial government. Had a long visit from Fred Fetter. 
He says the prejudice against the University is growing every 
day. 

December 29, 1866—Governor Swain returned, and had 
much to tell me about the Ninety Days, many compliments to 
repeat to me. All this, however, is the merest chaff. I want 
to know that the book sells. 

It has been a year of constant hope deferred to those inter- 
ested in this college. A year of much pleasurable, if not profit- 
able, employment to me, thanks to Dr. Deems. I have much 
to be thankful for, much to be ashamed of, much to be dis- 
couraged by, in looking back over 1866. The death of my dear 
little nephew [S. F. Phillips’ son], and the state of Ma’s 
health are the great troubles of the year. Our servants are a 
great source of worry to us. They are inclined to do as little, 
and to get as much as possible. Aunt Dilsey and Uncle Ben 
seem to sit rather loose—but we are eaten up by our negroes. 
The old year is passing. What will the new year bring? 
Who can even guess? 


Several letters of interest are found in the collection. 
The first is to a rather prominent Presbyterian minister 
at Mebane, North Carolina, an intimate friend of her 
father, Dr. James Phillips. She afterwards wrote a 
memorial of him for publication in the North Carolina 
Presbyterian. The second letter, the long one, is a re- 
markable statement of her ideas about this time to Miss 
Eliza North of New London, Connecticut, a sister of 
Mrs. Mitchell. This lady had been a frequent visitor to 
‘Chapel Hill before the war, and was a highly intelligent, 


126 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


very positive New England spinster. She had evidently 
been correcting the views of her relatives, who had 
passed the time of the war in Chapel Hill, isolated from 
their Northern kinsfolk, both by space and by opinion. 


March 7, 1866. 
My Dear Dr. [Witson]: | 


By this mail I send you the numbers of the Watchman, 
containing nos. 2 and 3 of Last Ninety Days, and also some 
poetry (so called) entitled “Sherman marching from Atlanta” 
which I will thank you to sing. I would be very thankful to 
you for a candid criticism of my work. What you say as to 
the passage in Governor Vance’s letter referring to President - 
Davis, is just so. Governor Vance did not wish it published, 
Governor Swain and Dr. Deems voted the other way, and there 
you have it. 

Pa is and looks well. He has been doing duty for Charles, 
and for Professor Fetter, who has been sick also. Governor 
Swain has gone to Washington on business connected with 
the treasury department. The aid afforded by the General 
Assembly of the state to the University was very welcome 
though very small. It ought to have been ten thousand in- 
stead of seven. But Governor Swain was never liberal in his 
estimates, and thinks it a great wonder that he got the Legis- 
lature to do anything. 

I do get horribly mired in the slough of despond some- 
times. I look forward and see only a life of toil, or worse, 
perhaps of dependence, and poorly requited toil for one’s self 
and one’s children—Well, there’s no writing about it. I am 
not afraid of work, no one works harder than I do these days, 
and how thankful I am that I have it to do. 

Literary projects seem to abound among us these days. 
Magazines, newspapers, books—one needs a fortune to sub- 
scribe to half. I do not think very highly of American litera- 
ture even at its best, but Southern literature is the feeblest 
attempt, the very weakest dilution and rinsings. 

Has Hannis Taylor, whom I taught until he went to 
Bingham’s, come under your observation? How is he doing? 


JOURNALS AND LETTERS 127 


I feel a very considerable interest in him, though latterly I 
never could get any study out of him. He is bright enough 
to do very well if he will only try. 

I am writing this at twelve o’clock at night, or I could put 
a message in from Pa. 

Dear Dr. believe me, your very much attached, 


CorRNELIA P. SPENCER 


CHAPEL Hitz, March 10, 1866. 
My pDEAR Miss Eniza: 


Margaret gave me your letter to read containing a pleasant 
message to me, which somehow or other I feel as if I must 
answer. I have such agreeable recollections of Miss Eliza 
North, and so much confidence in her ultimate good sense, and 
love of truth and Christianity, that I cannot believe she would 
take amiss any letter inspired by such respectful friendship as 
mine. 

I seem to be addressing you on the other side of a great 
gulf—a gulf at one time impassable, but which has been bridged 
over, and which I do humbly and heartily pray may be filled 
up some time or other. Not yet, and not now, but some day, 
in God’s own good time. Meanwhile let us send kindly mes- 
sages over our bridge, and along our telegraph line. 

My dear friend I see you feel very strongly upon the sub- 
ject of the “Rebellion” but I don’t think you feel any more 
strongly than I do, and I am a moderate compared with many 
of my friends here. I am often at issue with your folks, 
Mary, and Margaret, and Eliza, but I yield to no one in love 
to the South, devotion to her cause, and anguish over her 
humiliation. I never thought the South had any pretense of 
right to make war. I felt she had a great provocation, but 
nothing. that would justify an appeal to arms. I and my dear 
husband in Alabama were horror stricken over the attack 
on Fort Sumter. He was passing then through the dark valley, 
made darker by the clouds that hung over his country; though 
this increased his longing for the more settled home, the City 
which hath Foundations, to which he was hastened. I entered, 


128 OED DAYS INUCHADEL RIE 


in those days, very little into the merits of those questions that 
agitated the land, and when I did rouse myself from my dust 
and ashes, the ruins of my earthly happiness, and came back 
to North Carolina at the close of 1861, I found every man, 
woman, and child enlisted for the War. I joined the army 
too, and never left my colors till Lee’s flag went down on his 
last field. 

Dear Miss Eliza, can you not see how people who resisted 
secession, who foresaw in it nothing but ruin, yet when it 
became the law of the state when our national honor was 
pledged to support it, sprang to arms and fought to the last 
gasp for the Confederacy? Yes, for North Carolinians fought 
for a government they did not love, and had little cause to re- — 
spect, fought because their honor was involved, and because 
they were Southerners. 

You seem to wonder why, if we left the Union with 
regret, we did not welcome its restoration. Ah, Miss Eliza, 
it was not the Union we had left. It is not now—and we had 
been learning to hate it, and those who were forcing it upon 
us—learning to hate, with deadly burning hatred those who 
wantonly despoiled us. 

I do believe that the words which passed from North to 
South, and back again, did more to set us against each other 
than the bullets. I know that words are doing a great deal 
even now to keep our wounds open and our animosities un- 
healed. I believe that the lying that was done by the news- 
paper press on both sides was enough to sink the whole conti- 
nent to perdition. I look back aghast now to think what lies. 
we swallowed about you, and I look aghast to see what lies 
you swallowed about us. I should like very much to disabuse 
your mind of some that I see you are burdened with—to give 
you some idea of the laughter which Northern stories of our 
doings create here. For my part I have long ago disgorged 
what I swallowed about you all. I found it necessary to do so 
before I could accept the situation. I believed nothing, hoped 
nothing, cared for nothing, what time your bayonets forced the 
Union down my throat. 


JOURNALS AND LETTERS 129 


I’ve got it, accepted it, and think I shall digest it, and that 
in time it will agree with me. I have no desire now to go to 
Brazil or Mexico. I want to love my whole country from 
Maine to Texas, once more, and please God I will do it. It 
may take time, but I will forgive. 

Now dear friend, cannot you get rid of some of your pre- 
judices and try to understand that the South was sinned against, 
as well as sinning? 

I give up as utterly baseless the stories that so fired us 
against you. The poisoned minie balls our papers said you 
shot at us—the poisoned drugs they said you smuggled into our 
hospitals, the starved, rat-eating prisoners they said you abused, 
the fires they said you kindled in our towns, the murderous 
emissaries they said you sent among our slaves, the fiendish 
temper generally they said you chose to exhibit towards us. 

I do wonder that we listened to such and thousands more 
inventions of those whose interest it was to keep the war 
feeling alive, I wonder at our folly and credulity. Now dear 
Miss Eliza, please don’t you believe we ever wanted to poison 
the Croton Reservoir, or set the St. Nicholas on fire. Such 
talk—such plans if they were ever broached had their origin 
among men of Booth’s stamp, men who were quite as much 
of the North as the South, and who were expecting to make 
something out of such speculations and revelations. Don’t 
speak to intelligent southerners of such things as if they were 
our southern plans. Southerners meant fair play, open fight- 
ing. How they would have carried on the war was shown 
plainly enough in the conduct of their army in Pennsylvania. 
We point proudly to that record. 

Our pastime in war was not in burning houses and ravaging 
open country, or stripping or starving women and children. 
We fought honestly, we planned no assassinations, nor whole- 
sale murders, such as the Northern press complimented us by 
ascribing to us. We invoked the blessing of God on every 
movement—that blessing He denied us, and we submit to His 
decree, and have not lost faith in Him. We mean to learn 
the lesson He has set us, and on the first page we see “Love 
your Enemies.” Now please Miss Eliza, take hold your side 


130 OLD DAYS TIN CHAT Bile nn i 


of the Book and learn your lesson with us, and see which of 
us can say it the best when called up. The South meant fair 
play, and she wants fair play now. We want to go to work 
quietly and build up our ruined fortunes, and set this country 
going again. We honestly accept the consequences of our 
miscalculation and delusion and we want to be believed when 
we say so. It is rather hard that misrepresentation must dog 
us even now, that people are so bent on throwing in our teeth 
every trumped up newspaper story, besides the new ones daily 
invented. 

Miss Eliza, I feel that the South sinned, sinned in her 
pride, her prosperity, and her confidence. Sinned in the way 
she allowed a few fanatical demagogues to precipitate her into - 
the war. God has humbled her. But as strongly as I feel 
all this, so strongly do I feel that though we have fallen we 
shall rise again. God chastens whom He loves. He has a 
great mercy in store for us, low as we lie under His hand; 
and I declare to you now, that I would rather be the South in 
her humiliation than the North in her triumph. 

There is great virtue in suffering and affliction. You know 
the higher nobler qualities of men and nations come out of 
the furnace purified and intensified. We have never lost our 
self-respect. Humiliation is not degradation; and from this 
night of suffering, of confusion and blood and anguish we shall 
rise to the light of a better day,—God grant it! 

I have not left myself any room for discussion of our 
affairs—freedmen or other. Without being in the least able 
to see any parallel between the enfranchisement of God’s 
chosen people and that of Ham’s descendants, I can heartily 
agree with you in being glad that they are free. They have 
always been an awful drag upon the prosperity and develop- 
ment of the South, and because I love the white man better 
than I do the black, I am glad they are free. 

And now I wish they were all in—shall I say Massachu- 
setts?—or Connecticut? Poor things! We are doing what 
we can for them. 

Since I began this letter the Raleigh papers have come 
giving Brother Sam’s speech in favor of allowing them to 


JOURNALS AND LETTERS 131 


testify in court. I will send it on in this to you, and I wish 
you would read it. It is elaborately prepared, and I under- 
stand has greatly advanced Brother Sam’s reputation. You 
know he always was a “‘Reconstructionist” and mightily abused 
too, by some of his neighbors, though he supported the war 
as long as there was hope. Brother Charles has just received 
a supply of books from New York for his Negro Sunday 
School. 

The Philadelphia Quakers are going ahead with their mis- 
sions, large schools in Greensboro and elsewhere. Don’t you 
believe your “‘eye-witnesses and ear-witnesses” of our cruelty 
to our poor negroes. [Exceptional cases there are no doubt, 
as in everything, but believe me, nine hundred and ninety in 
every thousand of our people are kindly disposed to them, and 
if they behave themselves will befriend them. 

Our slaves behaved well during the war. If they had not, 
it would not have lasted ten months. We feel that they are 
in no way to blame for the present situation. 

Well, I am afraid you won’t accept me after all, nor see 
with my lights. I would like to have a long talk with you, 
not at all afraid of tongue to tongue. I am glad you read 
my Ninety Days and will be more glad to have your impres- 
sions of it from time to time. 

I should like to write another sheet full, and tell you about 
our folks, and my dear old father and mother, and brothers 
and sisters, and my little daughter. We are all well, thank 
God, and have enough to eat, and have not been reduced to 
fig-leaves ; though when calico was $50.00 a yard, and factory 
cloth $25.00 there really was a danger of it. Dear Miss Eliza, 
let us shake hands across the gulf. God bless you. 


A part of the ensuing letter to Mrs. J. J. Summerell 
has been destroyed. The date must have been about 
September 30, from internal evidence: 


DEAR ELLEN: 


General and Mrs. Atkins came home this week. Most 
persons think it a great pity she should come home at all in 


id 


132 OND DAYS IN CHAPEL Eth t 


such a crisis in our affairs. . . . I went from your Mother’s to 
call on Dr. Duncan Moore and his wife at Emery’s. They 
were all full of the general talk and excitement against Gover- 
nor Swain. 

Dr. Moore says it is very great down in his section. Gen- 
eral Atkins and Ellie coming here this fall has increased the 
bitterness. Everybody agrees that the Governor must resign, 
or the University is doomed, yet nobody will tell him so. I 
think he has no idea of resigning. He thinks he will live it 
down. What do you think? Sometimes he seems very des- 
pondent, but brightens up and seems to take heart. I feel 
very sorry for him! . . . Speaking to Brother Sam at the 
death of Brother Sam’s little son Charlie, Mrs. Swain said, | 
“Mr. Phillips, when you come to be as old as I am, you will 
not look upon this loss as being such a great misfortune.” 

As to forgiving our enemies, Ellen, I can’t say that I have 
reasoned much with myself about it. I would like to read 
that book you mentioned, and see what it says on the matter. 
If we are to be forgiven as we forgive, I think we had better 
do it as quickly as we can. I am, however, sensible of a great 
rising in my throat when I contemplate certain parties in the 
Yankee Nation. I do confess I am at times in no sort of 
amity toward them. I have never been able to get up the 
slightest feeling of loyalty or interest in the Star Spangled 
Banner. On the contrary, I would like to spit on it this min- 
ute! Now of course this is not forgiveness, and yet I think 
myself a better Christian in this matter than a good many of 
my neighbors. The question you propose is whether we are 
required to forgive and love them before they exhibit signs 
of repentance. If we are to take our Master for an example, 
the answer seems to be this—“While we were yet sinners 
Christ died.’’—I really do believe we ought to choke down, 
trample out, scatter to the winds, all our natural, justifiable 
resentment and bitterness, and force ourselves to feel, look, 
and speak kindly and forgivingly of these people. It will 
cost a mortal pang to do it, but it ought to be done now. If 
we wait till time has dulled our memories somewhat and worn 
off the keenness of the edge, we may begin to say “I forgive” 


TOWURNADS AND CE UTEARS 133 


when it is only that we are forgetting. I remember hearing a 
poor paralytic woman, struck down in the flush of her worldli- 
ness, say,—and she seemed to take such credit to herself for 
her renunciations—“I am done with the world now, I give 
it up freely’ when the fact was, the world had given her up. 
I think we are very apt to deceive ourselves in this way. It 
seems to me that these hatreds, resentments, envies, whatever 
we call them, are not to be suffered to die out, nor are to be 
allowed to live till certain conditions are complied with by 
the offenders; they must be taken hold of, in all their vigor, 
and pulled up, root and branch, though it be with a long pull 
and a strong pull, and a pull altogether. 

I say all this with the deepest shame, that having these con- 
victions I have never as yet been able to act up to them. “The 
good I would, I do not.” Ellen, I am a miserable Christian. 
I don’t see that I grow in any grace whatever, or that any of 
my evil propensities are weakened, and the consequence is I 
don’t enjoy my religion as I ought to. I am best in the valley, 
or under the rod. When I recall any special seasons of quick- 
ening and reviving, they were always in times of affliction. 
There is great sweetness in adversity. 

Chapel Hill people are very poor. We are all so dependent 
on the prosperity of the University that its decline carries the 
whole village down. The faculty are greatly straightened. I 
could tell you some pitiful stories of some of them. And 
the future is both dark and uncertain. My little daughter is 
a promising child in most respects. She gives me no trouble 
in teaching. The main difficulty is her wilfulness. She has a 
great deal. I can manage her so as to avoid a conflict, guide 
her, so to speak, around the matter in question, so that she will 
not perceive it, but that is not controlling her, is it? I want 
her to get into the habit of coming over her will, into mine, 
and doing it prettily. “I want this, Mama wants that, and I 
will yield to her and do it.” I want cheerful obedience. 

I can compel obedience, but I do not want that. 

Brother Charles’ oldest girl is nearly as large as I am. 
An intelligent girl with a fine mind. She is well disposed, 
but I fear will be made unhappy by her near companionship 


134 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


with Mrs. Fetter’s girls. Mattie is just her age, and her class- 
mate and friend—a nice, amiable girl, but Mrs. Fetter restrains 
her girls in no way, and denies them nothing she can get for 
them. : 

Laura means Mary to lead a different life, but I fear Mary 
will chafe and repine. 

Ellen, I do wish Presbyterians had more resources for 
their young folk. We deny them the ball-room and the whist 
table, and have nothing to offer them in place. Young people 
ought to have youthful enjoyments. One or two Presbyterian 
girls in a community where all their genteel associates are 
Episcopalians have a forlorn time, unless they can travel. Oh 
dear, how I do wish I were rich, for the sake of these nephews 
and nieces! 

I think it is high time this letter came to an end.—Bed 
time. I wish you would treat me just this way. Love to all 
yours, and Pa sends love too—bBelieve me, yours very affec- 
tionately. 


Pais) 


XI 


THE BREAKING UP OF THE OLD 
REGIME 


HE JOURNAL continues with sorrowful records 
of death and disaster. Her friend, Mrs. Fetter, 
first passes away: 


March 1, 1867—Mrs. Fetter is dead! I feel as if the 
sunshine of my life were gone. I cannot trust myself to write 
of this event. My Dear, dear Mrs. Fetter! It brings me a 
sort of deadness. June’s “Ma Fetter.” No more little notes, 
scrawled to me at night, on a scrap of paper, begged of 
Grandpa. ‘Please go over to Ma Fetter’s and take me with 
you, and be good now, and please do it, like a pineapple,—like 
a yellow jasmine, and (once it was) like a rose, growing by 
clear water.’’ I cannot get over this blow. The gloom and 
sense of loss, and sorrow of heart. How much I would write 
of her, but I cannot. 

July, 1867—-On the morning of March 11th, Thursday 
morning, the blow anticipated by me, fell. My father, my 
honored, much beloved Father, fell dead. I had been prepar- 
ing myself for something of this sort for months. I cannot 
write of that dreadful morning. He fell dead in the college 
chapel, being just about to begin morning prayers at nine 
o'clock. He fell at his post, died in the arms of the students, 
without a struggle. Mrs. Martin and Ellen Summerell and 
Sister Laura came and staid with me. | 

On the 21st of March I started for New York to see Ma 
and bring her home with me. I was glad to be at my Uncle 
Sam Phillips’s and talk with him of my Father. They were 
very unlike, but there was resemblance enough to make me 
cling to him. Owing to Ma’s reluctance to return we did not 
get away till the last of June. Part of the time we spent in 
Plainfield, New Jersey. 

New York I found immensely grown since I was familiar 
' with its streets, fourteen years ago. It seemed twice as large, 


136 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


and twice as imposing in its appearance of wealth and great- 
ness. Such prosperity, such smiling prosperity. Such growth. 
I was all the time comparing it with the poor, broken down, 
unhappy, poverty stricken South. I feel like a dead leaf before 
the wind. 

Here I thank God solemnly that I had such a Father as 
mine was. I am thankful for his example of honesty and integ- 
rity of purpose, for the simplicity of his character, for his 
ardent faith, and for his zealous upholding of the standards 
of his belief. He was a manly man. 


New York, April 23, 1867. 
DEAR LAURA: 


Your box goes by the steamer Albemarle, which 
sails for Norfolk tomorrow. Since I wrote last, I have re- 
ceived yours, giving the account of the shocking injury of Mrs. 
Lucas [Mrs. Samuel Phillips’ mother], and of Charles’ return. 
To think of Mrs. Lucas living seventy years, and then dying 
so at last. Poor Charlie, and so he must go thirty miles from 
home, and meet such a terrible fall. His letter cost me a great 
burst of tears. 

I spent last Sabbath, Easter, with Uncle Sam at church, at 
Dr. Muhlenberg’s. Such magnificent flowers they have on 
Easter Day. Aunt Annie wished me to join her at Com- 
munion, and so I went forward with the vast crowd of com- 
municants. I hope I found good. My tears gushed as I 
thought of him who has drunk of the new wine, since we sat 
down together at our last Sacrament. Yesterday was Pa’s 
birthday. Uncle Sam told me he was thinking of him, all 
day, all day! 

My dear Laura, if I could only have my wish, I would go 
off in that boat tomorrow myself. I have nothing to do here 
now, and I want to get away somehow. I feel’ very tired of 
it all, 

“Like a tired child at a show, 
Who sees through tears the jugglers leap.” 


I have been thinking I would set Thursday, the second of 
May, for our departure, but from the various plans Mary 


BREAKING UP OF OLD REGIME V37) 


has for my doing and going, I doubt if I can get off then. In 
a few days I can see my way clear. Ma is here, seems very 
well. She does not appear to care about going back to Chapel 
Hill, nor do I wonder at her, though I certainly think she 
ought. Love to all, Yours ever, 


CE ey. 


July, 1867—-New York I found immensely grown since I 
was familiar with its streets, but its pomp, its parks, its beauty 
flitted before my eyes like a panorama. Useless to comfort, to 
distract, or to help. May 18th Ma had her fall, and I had to 
go to Plainfield, New Jersey, and remain with her. On June’s 
birthday I took her to New York, where she saw so much she 
was only bewildered. Ma and I left New York by sea, June 
29th, coming by Norfolk. We were a day in Raleigh, and 
reached home July 2, a sad bitter home-coming. Nothing but 
change and sadness. Everybody in Chapel Hill, black and white, 
came to see us on our return. I did not go into Pa’s study for 
two months after my return. Everything was just as he left it. 
There was his dressing-gown with the handkerchief in the 
pocket, as he wore it to breakfast that morning. 


Mrs. Spencer had missed, by her stay at the North, 
that Commencement at which President Johnson was 
present, accompanied by Mr. Seward and the Postmaster 
General. General Sickles, with two aides, was also 
present, and Jonathan Worth, the Governor of North 
Carolina. It was at this Commencement that President 
Johnson told of his early visit to Chapel Hill, when he 
ran away from his master, to whom his mother had ap- 
prenticed him. From this the party went to Raleigh, 
where the President had a monument placed in the old 
City Cemetery to his father buried there, and on this 
occasion Governor Swain made the address. By some 
oversight no invitation to Commencement was sent to 
Governor Holden, and he intensely resented this, Mrs. 


138 OUD I DAYS EN CRAPPER Pili: 


Spencer tells us, and also resented the fact that he was not 
asked to sit on the rostrum in Raleigh with the distin- 
guished guests. He did not come to Chapel Hill at all on 
this occasion. Secretary Seward made himself disliked 
by deriding the down-at-heel appearance of poor little 
Chapel Hill—no doubt a fact, but nevertheless not to be 
rubbed into a war-reduced company such as that. 

There are but a few entries in Mrs. Spencer’s diary 
this summer. She notices the death of Mrs. Battle, an- 
other dear friend, and says, “I cannot write of it, my 
soul is weary for very heaviness” and again, “The air is 
full of farewells.” 

Samuel Field Phillips, Mrs. Spencer’s second brother, 
was a large, handsome man, dignified and urbane. He 
was distinguished, mentally and morally, with the intel- 
lect and acumen of his family. He had always been a 
man of moderation and tolerance, judicial and far- 
sighted. From the very first he hated secession, breath- 
ing out its threatenings, and he was able from the very 
first to distinguish the beginning from the end, the 
inevitable end of this movement. He left Chapel Hill in 
the fall of ’67 to make his home in Raleigh, where he 
was Supreme Court Reporter. This was the first move 
away from Chapel Hill, of Mrs. Spencer’s immediate 
family. 

Samuel Phillips became identified with the Recon- 
struction wing of politics, although there was no real 
division, at that time. Everything was in solution, and 
the old Whigs were a good deal in the ascendancy as 
regards influence. Somewhere, Mrs. Spencer says that 
“in order to be useful in politics a man should be a little 
one-sided, a little fanatical, perhaps even a bit cranky.” 


BREAKING UP OF OLD REGIME | 139 


Samuel Phillips was none of these things. He had a 
most kindly disposition, almost perfect as regards benev- 
olence. He always made allowances. He did not hate 
people, and his turn of thought was philosophic. As a 
lawyer he was very able, one of the best in his generation. 
His detachment from the intense partisanship of the 
time made him dislike with his whole heart the storm 
and stress of the war times in which he was living. He 
had been a convinced member of Holden’s “Peace Party” 
which was opposed to the Civil War’s being prolonged. 
He was a member of that first Reconstruction Conven- 
tion which did not succeed in reconstructing anything. 
Then he slipped naturally into the eddying whirl of that 
period of North Carolina politics, which is indescribable, 
and it carried him into the Republican party. Mr. Phil- 
lips loathed this fury and exacerbation, but he stuck to 
his convictions, called out his passive resistance, and 
ignored the slights which his diverse course brought him 
and his family; slights which could not help having 
power to wound him. But we are going ahead of the 
narrative, to tell what the meaning was to Mrs. Spencer 
of her brother’s removal, although differences never 
made the least dissension between them. Mrs. Spencer 
seems to have been busy in helping her sister-in-law to 
settle in Raleigh. When the college opened with but fifty 
students, in this autumn of 1867, all the faculty resigned, 
and their resignations were accepted to take effect after 
the next Commencement. 

Her journal takes up the tale again: 

January 1, 1868—I came home with Brother Sam, the 


first time I was ever separated from June. I am to move from 
the old house into Brother Sam’s. Mr. Anderson of Nash- 


140 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


ville occupies a room upstairs. JI am to have students as 
boarders. Ma refuses to come with us. 


January 3, 1868. 
DEAR Fanny [Mrs. Samuel Phillips] : 


Sam will tell you the story of my journey up, a doleful 
New Year’s day it was. June was fast asleep when we came, 
and as it was ten o'clock at night, and they had given us up, 
I did not wake her, but after we had had supper I got in bed; I 
put my arms around her and began to whisper to her. She 
turned over in a flash, and was hugging me and kissing me 
as if she never meant to leave off. 

As usual your husband is threneed with visitors so that 
no one else has had a chance to speak to him, and I dare say, 
all of them want money. Miss Sally Williams waylaid him 
at Durham, and I saw Mrs. Newton’s son in chase of him this 
morning. Ma Patsey came in from her country residence. 
She wants him to give her ten dollars too. I divided your 
old crockery between her and Aunt Dilsey. I have engaged 
Sarah to clean up the house tomorrow. I see so much to do, 
and I cannot see my way clear through it. I feel dreadfully 
depressed. 

January 13, 1868—June and I slept over here at Brother 
Sam’s for the first time, having accomplished the moving 
pretty well. 


January 23, 1868. 
DEaR Fanny: 


Here I sit in your sitting room, looking out of your win- 
dows at your prospects. To none of which I feel the least 
right. There is something very saddening to me in a family’s 
moving voluntarily away from a place which we may reason- 
ably suppose they once meant to inhabit with their children 
and grandchildren! For my part I feel as if I had pitched 
my tent here for a very brief period, having dimmed my camp- 
fire over there in the old house with many tears. .. . 

I get up now at daylight, make my own fire, then dress, 
wake June, etc. At breakfast bell, 7:30, I have everything 
ready. Seven great young men walk down and are very polite 


BREAKING UP OF OLD REGIME 141 


in their morning salutations to Mrs. Spencer, who gracefully 
returns them from behind the tea tray. Then I ask a blessing 
and the meal goes on prosperously. I come up to my room 
about nine, and attend to June’s lessons. I can sew a little. 
At 12:30 I am in the dining room again till two o’clock. Ar- 
range the table for supper, before I leave it. Now I have two 
hours clear, supper at five as before. The evenings are what 
June and I look forward to. My little stand drawn up before 
the fire, the hearth swept, the shades drawn. 

February 22, 1868—Uncle Ben and Aunt Dilsey have left 
us. Dear old soul! I trust she and I will live together again. 
I told her I looked upon it as only temporary. Miss Sally 
Williams and Miss Matilda left last Saturday, in the wagon 
which came to take away their things. 

Professor Kerr arrived on Monday night, and came here, 
and I was glad to see him. He staid in the “office” a few 
nights. The boys are delighted with his teaching. 

The spring elections have resulted in the election of Holden 
for Governor. A terribly bitter thing for all the respectable 
people of this state, but it is done! 

Governor Swain talks hopefully about it, but the public 
press augurs great and sweeping changes; among other things 
that the University will be seized upon by the new govern- 
ment. In that case the coming Commencement will be the 
last one of the Old Régime. Governor Swain does not like 
to hear such suggestions. 


By June 7th, 1868, Mrs. Spencer had dismissed the 
young gentlemen who were her boarders for this past 
session. Of these young men she made warm friends in 
every instance. Many of them were well known and 
useful in after life. Two of them were of that family 
of cattle kings of the Southwest whose name has become 
an American term in the dictionary, meaning an un- 
branded, or wild steer: George and Will Maverick. 
Another was Colonel Burgwyn, well known in North 
Carolina for years, and all these she wrote to, at inter- 


142 OLDS DAYS INGCEAPE IOI: 


vals, and never lost sight of them. She describes the 
leave taking, how she and they all cried at parting, and 
one of them took her hand and kissed it. 

Her diary does not record much but says, “Com- 
mencement of 1868 is over, the last they say.” The trus- 
tees had decided to keep the institution open as long as 
the new government would allow it. Accordingly Gov- 
ernor Swain advertised the new session for the fall, and 
the faculty, who had resigned, were begged to wait a 
little before they finally arranged to leave the place. 
Governor Holden, who had been elected between the time 
of the resignations of the faculty and the meeting of 
the trustees at Commencement, announced that a new 
order of things was to begin immediately, that the new 
Constitution provided for a new board of trustees. The 
faculty had resigned, and they might stay resigned. To 
emphasize this announcement, he sent a guard of negro 
soldiers to take possession of the University campus and 
buildings. Poor Governor Swain, being thus ejected 
from his beloved work, tried to be cheerful about it, tried 
to talk as if he were glad to have the leisure in which to 
write that History of North Carolina which he had talked 
about for so many years. But he drooped during the 
summer, and showed his age for the first time. He was 
about to go to his old home in the mountains of western 


North Carolina, but he put this trip off from week to 
week. 


August, 1868—On the 11th of August he had his famous 
Sherman horse hitched to his buggy, and rode a few miles 
into the country on business. Professor Fetter was with him. 
Within a few miles of the village, on their return, the unruly 
horse bolted with them, and both were thrown out. Professor 


BREAKING UP OF OLD REGIME 143 


Fetter was but a little hurt, but Governor Swain was so bruised 
he had to be carried home upon a stretcher. But coming home he 
chatted with his bearers, and no one realized that this was his 
last appearance on the streets and walks that he loved for thirty- 
three years. For more than two weeks he lay quietly in his 
home, receiving visitors, and discussing public affairs pretty 
much as he had always done. He had been terribly bruised and 
shaken, but he was going to get over it, surely. On the morn- 
ing of August 27 he sat up to have his bed made, and suddenly 
he fainted and could not be revived. He passed gently, with- 
out a sigh, within a very few minutes. That was a morning to 
be remembered in Chapel Hill. Governor Swain’s death meant 
the disintegration of society here and the dispersion of its 
members with a rapidity and in a degree quite unexampled in 
the history of any other village in this State. Thirty families 
went almost immediately. California, Tennessee, Ohio, New 
York, Texas, and many places in North Carolina received the 
removing folk. 


The old faculty, the few that were left, met together, 
and prayed solemnly in company, shook hands, and bade 
each other God speed. 

In 1857 Dr. Mitchell had fallen over a precipice, in 
one of his mountain rambles, and had been drowned in 
a deep pool at the foot, where a little stream had poured 
over into a hollow with over-hanging sides. Happily he 
had missed all the heartbreak and loss of the Civil War. 
Dr. James Phillips died as we have heard, suddenly, at 
his post in the College Chapel. Now it was Governor 
Swain, the last of the three, mercifully taken away be- 
fore he should see the old order change in the place where 
he had wrought so happily. 

Mrs. Spencer herself is writing to her brother 
Sam in Raleigh, and talking of returning to Alabama if 


144 OLD DAYS WINVCHA RET SEyiici 


she failed to get some work to do in her home state. She 
talks of this offer and that. It is old Mrs. Phillips, who 
does not wish to be removed from her old home, who 
delays these plans. The news is that the University is 
to “be allowed to remain closed for a year at least, by 
the powers that be.” “Won’t the dog-fennel take the 
streets in that case?’ The friends who still lingered 
were leaving, leaving day by day. 

Charles Phillips had no difficulty in finding a profes- 
sorship, for he was well known and appreciated as a 
teacher of mathematics. Several colleges were begging 
for his services. He himself had always hankered after 
a pastoral charge, loving the pulpit more than he did the 
professor’s chair, but at last he decided to teach at Dav- 
idson College, the Presbyterian institution of North 
Carolina. The defeat of the University was the oppor- 
tunity of the several denominational colleges, and their 
endowments had not been so disastrously drained by the 
war. 

Dr. Charles Phillips was now a man in the prime of 
life and vigor. He was a man of energy and eagerness. 
He loved work, and filled his days to overflowing. Now 
he also must leave the old home where they had all lived 
so long within a stone’s throw of each other. Mrs. Spen- 
cer Says: 

I can hardly express to anyone the sense of loss and desola- 
tion which has seized upon me since Charles and Laura left— 
they were the last. Poor Charles went through all his packing 
and parting with apparent equanimity, but when he said fare- 
well to us he broke completely down. He got into the hack, 
sobbing like a child. There was a great crowd of negroes 


around the gate, his Sunday-school scholars whom he had 
taught so long, who wept with him. Poor Ma was quite over- 


BREAKING UP OF OLD REGIME 145 


come. As the hack drove off she turned to me and thanked 
God, crying aloud, that she had one child left. 

But I am thankful that after all this waiting and uncer- 
tainty Brother Charles has so congenial and comfortable a 
situation. 


There is an entry in her journal of 1901, which be- 
longs to this time, as a reference to these scenes after 
many years: 


I wish seriously to take myself to task for a certain weak- 
ness of mind that seems to overtake me. June got out of some 
corner the other day a brass candlestick which was once Mrs. 
Fetter’s, one of a pair she possessed and valued. When he 
with his three orphan girls, alas, and alas! left Chapel Hill to 
go to their new home, he crossed the street from his house to 
mine, at midnight, January 27, 1869, bringing me the key of 
his house, now empty, and having this candlestick with an inch 
or two of the candle burning in it. He put it down on a 
table; “this is the last.”’ In half an hour they all drove 
off to Durham. I kept the candlestick, though I have never 
looked at it without pain all these thirty-two years. Now 
June has rubbed it up, and put in a sperm candle, one of 
half a dozen which Mrs. Hubbard gave me when she had to 
leave Chapel Hill three years afterwards. There it sits now, 
the only relic I have of those old friends and neighbors, those 
friendly cordial people. .. . 

What I arraign myself for, is that such poignant melan- 
choly seizes me when I recall them. Why should I feel so 
sad? I have other dead friends whose memory is not distress- 
ing nor depressing. It troubles me that there should be such 
pain in my thoughts of these neighbors who were my most 
familiar friends for years, our friendship never once inter- 
rupted. I am simply broken-hearted when I recall these 
friends so linked together, “‘the eyes that shone, now dimmed 
and gone.” The melancholy that comes of such consideration 
is largely constitutional, I imagine. It is an inheritance no 
doubt from my English blood. 


146 OLD DAYS IN; CHAPET AILD 


Professor Shaler’s book, last published, The Individual, 
says it is best to forget, to leave all such memories of people 
and things behind, “Oblivion being the inevitable lot of all 
human affairs, even the greatest.” How true! Old people 
must be forgiven this weakness among others, I think. It 
is inherent, belongs to us all. The disposition, however, should 
be guarded against. The things that are behind should be 
forgotten and buried. 

“OQ Thou first and with the last, 
Annul our ruined past.” 


XII 
AFTER THE DISPERSION 


Y THE NEW State Constitution of 1868 the elec- 
tion of trustees of the University was given to the 
State Board of Education, acting as the Executive Com- 
mittee of the trustees. They were to appoint one trustee 
from each county in the state. Of both boards, the 
smaller and the larger, the Governor was ex officio chair- 
man, and having appointed the Board of Education, was 
himself the source of power in both. 

William W. Holden has long been the center and 
focus of hatred and vituperation which grew most bitter 
about this time in North Carolina. He has been per- 
sonally charged with every wrong which his party found 
means to commit, whether in any degree responsible or 
not. 

The policy of President Andrew Johnson towards 
reconstruction was probably a practical one for the South, 
but his Congress as a body had determined to give the 
vote to the freed negroes. They did this over his veto, 
in 1867. This act became the chief reason and explana- 
tion of these stormy times, of these years of dissension,— 
Union League—Ku Klux—plunder of the state treasury 
—impeachment of Governor Holden. These unpleas- 
antnesses form the background of this portion of our 
narrative. 

But Holden himself is one of those strangely organ- 
ized characters who could only be analyzed, were he of 
enough importance, by such psychologists as are today at 
work explaining sundry misconceived historic characters. 
Born a poor boy of humble family in Hillsborough, North 


148 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


Carolina, he raised himself in the world wholly by his 
own exertions. Mentally he was well equipped, but the 
fierce aristocratic pride of southern society had been 
hard for him to surmount in his progress. He himself 
tells a story of his being given food from the table of 
one of the most prominent men of Hillsborough, and of 
declaring in after life that he resolved then and there to 
become master of those who had patronized him that day. 
Naturally of a literary bent, self educated, he had ac- 
quired an easy flow of language, was witty and satirical, 
and was for many years an able editor. Holden was not 
a college man. He shows his deprecation of this in once 


telling Governor Swain, “I am, sir, like yourself, not a 
graduate of the University.” But Governor Swain had 
looked at college from the inside, while Holden had 
attended only the University of Hard Knocks. 

Mrs. Spencer seems to have held a bad opinion of 
Holden long before he became Governor. At first he 
was a Whig, and Governor Swain and the Phillips 
family, with almost all the faculty at Chapel Hill, were 
Whigs. Holden edited a very influential newspaper at 
Raleigh, when suddenly he turned Democrat, making all 
Whigs his natural enemies. By his great influence he 
was successful in electing the first Democratic governor. 
in 1850, and the Whigs did not again-seize the reins of 
government. As a Democrat, Holden became a most 
rabid sectionalist. Vance says of him, ‘Holden was for 
ten years the great leader and teacher of secession.” 
His editorials fairly crackle with vituperative epithets 
for years before the Civil War. In 1856, one of the 
newer professors at Chapel Hill, Benjamin S. Hedrick, 
was found to hold “Free Soil” opinions. Holden’s paper 
blazed away at the University for harboring sedition, 


AFTER THE DISPERSION 149 


and at the man himself, until he was provoked to reply in 
print. After that his students would not tolerate him, and 
he was forced to resign, and with him a brilliant young 
Frenchman who took his part. These things Mrs. Spen- 
cer knew perfectly well, moreover she felt warm friend- 
ship for Professor Hedrick, and in later years never 
failed to visit him in Washington City. It was with sor- 
row and misgiving that the old Whigs found themselves 
outside the Union in 1861. Holden also at the same time 
felt misgivings as to whither he had drifted. To stop 
himself, he favored the nomination of Douglas for Presi- 
dent. This should class him as a Union Democrat. In 
1862 he supported Vance for governor. The next year, 
1863, Holden was advocating peace. He repudiated 
Vance because he was for fighting the thing through, 
regardless. The Civil War being over, Holden used his 
record as an early advocate of peace, with Andrew John- 
son the President, to get himself appointed Provisional 
Governor. When Johnson’s plans for reconstruction 
were superseded and he was impeached, Holden used all 
speed to jump aboard the new bandwagon and begin to 
urge on the impeachment. We have already seen how 
he was incensed by being left off the list at the Com- 
mencement of 1867, when Andrew Johnson was present. 

In difficult circumstances few men are able to wield 
great power for long without positively committing 
crime. Raised to the saddle upon his election in 1868, it 
would have been almost superhuman in Holden to refuse 
to take opportunity to get even. His election was won 


1 With Hedrick was associated M. Henri Harrisse, a most schol- 
arly young Frenchman. He dissented from the remaining faculty 
regarding the acceptance of Hedrick’s resignation. On this account 
he was insulted by his students. He therefore resigned in December, 
1856. Returning to France he there became a well known historian 
of the great Napoleon. 


150 OND DAYS INV CHAP RIV Veni: 


by means of the recently enfranchised negroes, managed 
by the so-called “Carpet-baggers” and ‘“Scalawags.”’ 
White conservatives were discouraged and kept away 
from the polls in every practicable way. This injustice, 
added to the ruinous change and post-war confusion of 
all society, made a regular hell-broth of North Carolina 
politics on both sides, the poisons of which, have never 
been entirely eliminated to this day. The politics of that 
time fell into sinister confusion. 

Holden was a sensitive man, as such experience as 
his would be likely to make him; he was proud as such a 
man would have to be, and susceptible to flattery as 


almost any man is likely to be. He needed a stiffness in | 


his convictions which he never had. His ever changing 
opportunism shows forth this failing. But to finish this 
attempted portrait, the high lights must be added. Hol- 
den was of most excellent character as a family man, as 
a neighbor, and as an employer. Afterwards, when mis- 
fortune came upon him, he was both dignified and 
patient. 

It does not seem strange that Holden was willing just 
now to “sweep out the rickety old concern’’—‘‘to smoke 
out the old rookery,” as he termed it; or that he should 
be quite indifferent to the feelings of an old University 
President and his remnant of faculty. He appointed his 
new trustees forthwith, and sent a company of negro 
soldiers to close the University, sine die. Mrs. Spencer 
was thinking of Holden when she wrote in her diary: 

I know nothing more bitter than the pride of peasants. 
Burns was rude, harsh in his judgments, insufferable in his 
conceit and the pride of his humility. Neither he nor Car- 
lyle ever got rid of their early belongings. Neither were ever 


quite at ease among their betters in these respects. Yet put a 
pen in the hand of either, and he rose on eagle’s wing. 


. 


AFTER THE DISPERSION 151 


It is remarkable how readily the older folk would 
talk about the ““War”’ and its disasters, but seldom re- 
ferred to reconstruction times. The latter they wished 
doubtless to forget, if it were possible. Governor Swain’s 
death was but another blow to an institution and a struc- 
ture of society already tottering to their fall. Holden 
might be right in putting a period to a finished essay ; 
but under the influence of one John Pool he did not stop 
there, as might have been justified to him. He began 
and encouraged an experiment which furnished his ene- 
mies with all the ammunition against him which they had 
lacked before, an experiment for which he was fully 
. responsible, in whatever other matters he may be found 
innocent. 

He decided that the University should be reopened 
at New Year, 1869, and the man whom the Holden gov- 
ernment put in charge as president was the Reverend 
Solomon Pool. This man was a graduate of the class of 
1853, and a brother of John Pool. He had been until a 
short time previous a tutor in mathematics at the Uni- 
versity, and was no doubt well known to Mrs. Spencer, 
as having been one of her husband’s classmates, and 
among her father’s pupils, and later a tutor in his depart- 
ment. He had some ability, and was not without ideas. 
He was a Methodist preacher, although not occupying a 
pulpit ; a smallish, curly-haired man with pompous ways. 
An old letter from Dr. Mitchell to his wife recounts the 
history of these brothers, and lays it to their peculiar 
upbringing, and to the fact that they had to be legitimized 
in late boyhood, that they showed a peculiar furtiveness 
of action. Of course this circumstance was their mis- 
fortune, and in no wise their fault, but it may account for 
some of the imperviousness to public disesteem which the 


152 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


new President of the University found it possible to 
maintain. Mrs. Spencer says of him: 


The college-mates and colleagues of Mr. Pool are not few 
nor unknown. We have never seen nor heard of one who says 
he is or ever has been fit to be president of the University of 
North Carolina. Dr. Phillips said of him, “Mr. Pool has not 
grown one inch since he graduated. He has been too lazy.” 
Drop Mr. Pool into the boots of Dr. Caldwell, or of Gover- 
nor Swain, he may peep over the tops, but he can only stumble 
about in them. The University is in the hands of men who 
will not, cannot do what they promise to do. They are dis- 
approved by all but a very few of their own party, and can 
command no patronage even from their political friends. 


The faculty placed in charge by Governor Holden 
consisted of: Reverend Solomon Pool, President, and 
Professor of Mental and Moral Philosophy; Fisk P. 
Brewer, Professor of Greek; David S. Patrick, Profes- 
sor of Latin; James A. Martling, Professor of English; 
Alexander McIver, Professor of Mathematics. Two 
of the new professors, Martling, and Patrick, do not 
seem to be indicated or distinguished in any notable 
fashion. Professor Brewer was a well educated man, a 
Greek scholar from Massachusetts, but such a vehement 
negrophile that he was out of place anywhere in the 
South. It was a sort of mania with the man. Mrs. Spen- 
cer says of him: “Professor Brewer may have been a 
tutor in one Northern College, or a Professor in another. 
I do not know anything about him save his predilection 
for teaching negroes.” 

He was, however, a sort of stormy petrel, leaving 
North Carolina for South Carolina, where he was en- 
gaged in a similar enterprise in the reconstructed Uni- 
versity of that state. It has been said that he was a near 
relative of Justice Brewer of the Supreme Court of the 


AFTER THE DISPERSION 153 


United States. The fifth of these new men was Pro- 
fessor Alexander Mclver from Davidson College, 
whence he had been practically driven out by ostracism, 
because he persisted in voting for General Grant for 
President of the United States when such a course meant 
all that was difficult, so unbelievably high did political 
hatred run everywhere. Professor McIver had been 
appointed to Chapel Hill about the same time that Mrs. 
Spencer’s brother, Dr. Charles Phillips, was engaged to 
replace him at Davidson, both men teaching mathematics, 
and seemingly exchanging residences. 


In January, 1869, Governor Vance writes Mrs. Spen- 
cer from Charlotte: 


Since I have seen your pleasant and welcome handwriting, 
many serious events and sad gaps have occurred, and been 
opened in the ranks of those dear to us. Since our last com- 
munication, I have thought often of writing to you to assure 
you of what I suppose you have never doubted, my continued 
friendship and my kindest sympathy. I hear that you are to 
go to Alabama, and I felt that I could not let you go without 
expressing my regret. Iam in hopes it may not be true, though 
there is little to detain anyone here save the associations con- 
nected with better days . . . yet somehow I want you, and all 
those who have labored to serve the dear old state, to feel to- 
ward North Carolina as I do—that we should not desert her in 
the day of her humiliation. I love her the more because of her 
sorrows and degradation. I should be greatly pleased to 
hear that the way has been opened for you to remain here and 
abet us in watching for the better day whose dawning we do 
not doubt... . 

Oh, how I sorrow for Chapel Hill! How worse than deso- 
late it must look under the oaks! I don’t know how you can 
live on there, thinking always of the past. How I miss my 
dear friend, Governor Swain! Alas, alas, our pleasant village 
is broken up and destroyed indeed! 


if j 
Abs 
i 
YI 
py 
y 
oi 
aI 
i! 


THE MITCHELL HOUSE 


APTER THE DISPERSION A Ibs 


A few weeks later Mrs. Spencer visited Mr. Vance 
at Charlotte, and it was while there that she arranged to 
supply a column each week for the North Carolina Pres- 
byterian, the paper of that denomination published there. 
This gave her the desired opportunity to find some em- 
ployment which she could perform at Chapel Hill, and 
thus remain with her mother and make her own living at 
the same time. Four hundred dollars a year was what 
she was promised for this literary work. Col. W. H. S. 
Burgwyn is also writing about this time, to entreat her to 
remain in Chapel Hill: 


If you will only remain in Chapel Hill it will be one more 
link to connect our thoughts with the past. You may see the 
old faculty yet come back to reoccupy their homes, and add 
dignity and reputation to the institution. Something may 
turn up, the trustees may inaugurate a better system, another 
legislature may appropriate the necessary funds, the loved and 
venerated spot may become once more a flourishing, happy, 
and not a deserted village. 

Mrs. Swain’s remark that it is an indictable offense to 
cut down those old trees, is not a foolish one. I wish that 
it was an. indictable offense. 

Mrs. Spencer, I do not believe I shall ever become less fond 
of Chapel Hill, or feel less indebted to the place and its inhabi- 
tants. I may possibly be on hand in North Carolina when the 
reorganization takes place. 


And so Mrs. Spencer resolved to stand by, in Chapel 
Hill, whatever came about. Here is a letter to Mrs. 
Swain, then living in Raleigh: 

CuHapeL Hitit, March 6, 1869. 
Dear Mrs. Swain: 


I have been intending to write to you ever since I came 
home, but put it off until the University should reopen, and 
I might have something to write about; for I am sure you will 


156 OLD I DAYS IN: CHAPPED AIEL 


always take a deep interest in the fortunes of this place and 
this institution. 

As for poor Chapel Hill, the University opened on the 3rd 
[of January]. No students have appeared or can be detected 
with the aid of a magnifying glass. I am divided between 
exultation that it is so, and sorrow for the poor village, so 
utterly dependent on the college for its living. 

Last Monday I had a long visit from Professor McIver. 
You know that he and Pool were both classmates of Mr. 
Spencer. With every disposition in the world to snub Mr. 
McIver, I could not do it. He was so friendly, and appeared 
so well, and said so much that was gratifying to me about Mr. 
Spencer, about my father, and about Governor Swain and 
other members of the old faculty. He talked like a good man 
as well as a sensible one. He would have been much the best 
choice for president among those here. He lives in Dr. 
Mitchell’s old home. Mrs. McIver gets up at daylight, and 
cooks her own breakfast. She will have no servant except a 
little girl. 

The Patricks live in your house. I asked “Aunt Dicey 
Lane” what sort of looking people they were. She said, “As 
common looking white-folks as I ever saw.”” Mrs. P. has her 
bed room in the Governor’s sitting-room. They have three ser- 
vents, and three little children. Brewer lives in the “Retreat.” 
His family have not arrived, nor is anything known of them 
as yet. Mrs. Baudry tells me that she hears that Mrs. Pool 
has laid great plans for society, and figuring therein. That 
Chapel Hill people always dropped her, and now she means 
to drop them. 

I am thankful to stay at home, and not be obliged to go 
out at all. Miss Nancy Hilliard came to see me the other day. 
She says this is the most stump-tail faculty she ever saw. She 
is greatly depressed to know what to do for a living. People 
in town cannot even get money to pay their town taxes. The 
new commissioners have laid a tax of fifty cents on the 
hundred dollars. Ann Watson says she cannot raise the 
money.) 

I was at the Governor’s resting place the day before the 
Patricks moved in. It was covered with fresh wreaths and 


AFTER THE DISPERSION 157 


bouquets of spring flowers. He is not forgotten. I hear from 
the Fetters regularly. Their school only numbers thirty-two. 
Julian Carr was here last week. He says Mr. Fetter looks lost. 
Margaret and Eliza write cheerfully. Their mother is con- 
tented and happy in Oxford. They hear from California where 
Mary and her family do all their own work, work hard, and 
are cheerful. If I can do anything here for you, my dear 
Mrs. Swain, it would give me great pleasure to do it. 
Yours faithfully, 
(aE as. 


XIII 


MRS. SPENCER’S FIGHT FOR THE 
UNIVERSITY 


N THE SPRING, after the worst had come to the 
place and the people she loved, and after she had 
decided finally to remain in Chapel Hill, Mrs. Spencer 
thought of something that she might do to bring about 
a restoration of the old institution and its usefulness. 
Vance writes her to “hold things in a sort of solu- 
tion, and wait for the event. Don’t hurry. They who 
can play the waiting game are winners in the end.” But 
Mrs. Spencer was one who was moved by the instant 
need of things. She had often written articles for the 
state papers. She had written her little book, and she 
was now turning out her weekly column for the Presby- 
terian. So she offered her services to Josiah Turner, 
editor of the Sentinel, the opposition paper at Raleigh, 
to write a series of articles in vindication of the “Old 
Régime” as she called it. As early as April, 1869, he 
announces, “A friend has promised us, and will soon 
commence, a series of sketches concerning the State Uni- 
versity. Our readers may expect something good, for 
the pen is competent to the task.’ The first of these 
Pen and Ink Sketches of the University appeared on 
April 26, and the last the following July 6th. With her 
personal, intimate knowledge of her subject and her lively 
way of setting it forth, this is a most interesting series 
today, interesting as history, unmarred by bitterness, 
vital and positive, without recrimination. These papers 
were copied by other journals all over the South, 


____ FIGHT FOR UNIVERSITY 159 


wherever alumni of the University became interested, 
and they built up a body of public opinion. 

Mrs. Spencer’s niece tells of this spring and summer, 
how two little bare-foot girls, her daughter and this 
niece, would run out early in those dewy mornings to 
await the mail-wagon that went to and from Durham, as 
it came outside town. One would have the letter for 
the Presbyterian, while the other mailed the packet for 
the Sentinel. When the vehicle rattled in sight, the 
driver would take from their hands what Mrs. Spencer 
did not want inspected at the tiny local post-office. 
Turner writes Mrs. Spencer, however, that he could not 
preserve her secrecy. His wife had maintained from the 
first that Mrs. Spencer wrote the pieces, and now every- 
one else was saying that no one else was capable of 
doing it. 

Writing to Mrs. Charles Phillips, at Davidson, Mrs. 
Spencer gives accounts of this time. She and her mother 
had moved back along the same village street, and were 
occupying the house her brother Charles had just vacated. 


Cuapet Hitt, April 13, 1869. 
DEAR LAURA: 


Yours of last Friday to hand today. I had one of the 
same date from Mr. Hepburn, [a former professor] and one 
from Dr. Hubbard [also an exile] both saying much the same 
things of Chapel Hill; only Mr. Hepburn thinks the present 
régime cannot last, Dr. Hubbard fears it will. 

I had a visit from Mr. Thomas Argo? [son-in-law of Dr. 
Hubbard] last Sunday evening. He had arrived Saturday 
night, and wanted me to read the manuscript of his speech de- 
livered Friday against the $12,000 appropriation bill for the 
University. He sent it to the Sentinel today. It is very tem- 
perate, I like it for that. The Radicals in town are furious 


1 Mr. Argo was later an attorney-at-law, of Raleigh, N. C. 


160 OLD DAYSUIN CHAPEL HILL 


about the failure of the bill. Mr. says “It don’t 
make no difference, Mr. Pool will hold on for twelve years, 
and he is a better qualified President than Governor Swain 
ever dared to be!’ 

Pool was in the lobby when Argo spoke. I hope he feels 
repaid. I took the children this afternoon and went to Pure- 
foy’s Mill. The creek was very full, no fishing done... 
Coming back we got over a break in the college wall, and walked 
up the grove back of the Old South. There was Will Barham,? 
burning leaves. He touched his hat and asked me if I could 
recommend him to some place where he could get work and 
pay. He had got little or nothing for seven months past 
work. ... 

Behind the Kimberly lot, (I won't say, Brewer lot) we met 
a whole raft of little scalawags, Mclvers, Patricks, Brewers 
and Martlings. The Martling and Brewer children mince their 
words dreadfully. The others are plain enough. I went to 
call on Mrs. Patrick last week. Singular that all four of these 
new professors are Presbyterians, or at least count that way. 

. . Oh T forgot to tell you that every effort was made last 
week to get that bill passed. Pool wanted $25,000, and the offer 
made to support a certain number of young men here, board, 
clothe, and educate. Pool said he was resolved the college should 
succeed. Let the State make this noble offer, and it would be 
done. “Y.Y.” and “H.H.” [in the Sentinel] are very near 
kin. No one suspects me, I believe. Miss Ann Watson has 
been in Raleigh . . . Saw Mrs. Swain and heard her lamenta- 
tions over the oaks Pool cut down. Mrs. Swain said she would 
not have taken $2,000 for that large oak. 

Don't you suppose your Indian Garden in the woods may 
be a relic of some Indian village girls who may have planted 
those wild flower roots? I should like to fancy it. I wonder 
if Indians did stop to admire a wild flower. Were there any 
anemones, tiarellas, iris, phlox, trilliums, yellow jasmine, laurel, 
in North Carolina woods four hundred and fifty years ago? 
These hills and woods are beginning to look very lovely now. 
White dogwood, and pink Judas tree, and the tender and varied 


2Will Barham was a college servant, former janitor to Dr. 
Mitchell. 


PIGHT BOR UNIVERSITY 161 


tints of green, and distant wheat fields. All is not gone from 
dear Chapel Hill. “The glory of the grass, and splendor of 
the flower’’—we still have these. 

I think Ma enjoys her home here. She says it is such a 
comfortable place, and the yard is so pretty. She is more 
genial than I have seen her for a long time. She much prefers 
this to Sam’s lot. You know the purchaser filled all that yard 
with shrubbery, evergreens, etc., and every one has turned up 
the whites of the eyes, and is dead as Julius Caesar. 

I hear the MclIvers are depressed and low, but Pool says 
the College shall go on. Purefoy’s son is the only one of the 
day scholars who will pay... . 

I mean by the history of the University a series of short 
spicy numbers giving a popular account of its rise and progress, 
officering, managements, presidents, professors, etc., with, of 
course, poisoned arrows for the present incomparable inca- 
pables. 

Barham, Ashe, and Wilse Swain, the College servants, say 
they have had “nary cent” as yet. I won't tell you what has 
become of all your nice barrels with wooden covers. It would 
vex you too much to know that the MclIvers got them all, owing 
to a stupidity of Snipes! 

Goodbye! 


April 23, 1869. 
Dear Mrs. SWAIN: 

I have not written to you in a long time, because I have 
not had the heart. Everything is so sad around Chapel Hill, 
and we all are in such a state of constant exasperation and 
gloom, that I thought I had better not inflict any of it on you. 

Miss Ann Watson told me of her visit to you, and I know 
she told you all of Chapel Hill gossip there was to be told. 

Everything is looking very beautiful now, you know how 
beautiful. The oaks that remain in the old yards are putting 
out their leaves as if unmindful of their old friends who have 
been cut down. I cannot tell you, Mrs. Swain, how I felt as 
those great trees went crashing down, trees which had sheltered 
the good and the great who made Chapel Hill what it 
Pues Shor. 


162 ORD DAYS IN CHAPPED HITED 


What astonishes me about the tree cutting is its wmpudence, 
as if they felt themselves owners, and seated for life. Last 
week Mr. John Carr had a talk with Pool, and told him he 
ought to resign, for the sake of the village, if for no other. 
Pool said he would not for $50,000. Mr. Carr replied that he 
would not hold on under such circumstances for $50,000. 
Pool said if students did not come in by June he would have 
the University suspended for four or five years. They have 
received money from somewhere. Mr. Argo tells me without 
doubt Ashley is tampering with the Common School Fund. 
I don’t care how much money they get, so that they do not 
get any students. That is the main point, and must starve them 
out at last. 

McIver, the decent one among them, tells me he is so de- 
pressed and mortified he can scarcely hold his head up—talks of 
leaving. Our Sunday School Superintendent has got Mrs. 
Brewer as one of the teachers. I did not like it, but said 
nothing, but when last Sunday in came Professor Brewer, 
affable, distributing papers, I said if he ever came there in any 
official capacity, I would withdraw. I cannot help it! 

Brother Charles writes that the more he sees of other places 
and people, the more he thinks of Chapel Hill and its old ways. 
It was an unique place. 

Every time anything appears in the Sentinel about Chapel 
Hill, the Radicals say, “Mrs. Spencer wrote that.’”’ I do not 
write everything that appears, but I confess to you, that it 
did me a heap of good to write “Hopeful” and sing King 
Sollie’s praises. 

April 26, 1869. 
DEAR CHARLES [Phillips] : 

There are one or two points I wish you would assist me 
with in writing about the University. Tell me what was the 
method of teaching in Chapel Hill? Was it in any important 
respect different from that of other universities in this coun- 
try? Was it different under Dr. Caldwell from what it after- 
wards became under the Governor? Can you give me two or 
three well digested paragraphs on this subject? Were you an 
advocate for the voluntary system of the University of Vir- 


FIGHT FOR UNIVERSITY 163 


ginia? I know Pa was not. What were the weaknesses of 
our general management? 

It is six o'clock in the morning, as I write. June and Nora 
are sound asleep. I look out o’ winder and see Simon come 
slooming along. 

We were quite excited over a gang of robbers which have 
made their appearance round town these moonlight nights. 
Miss Nancy Hilliard and Mrs. Carr were here Saturday after- 
noon, full of it. I was quite relieved to have another topic than 
that of Pool and Co. I hear that $8,000 has been sent up, 
begged, it was said, from some friend of the University. Others 
shake their heads, and whisper, “Common School Fund.” Of 
this $8,000 it is proposed to take $500 for expenses of Com- 
mencement ; ball, etc. I cannot believe they are so foolish. Pool 
told Carr that if no whites would come here, he would have 
negro students. I think Pool must say such things just to 
exasperate. Can you conceive of any amount of kicking too 
severe for such a man? 

Your field I planted with corn, and Friday it was up, four 
inches high. Friday night, Ma’s pigs broke in and ploughed 
the field all up again, nicely. To think of Ma’s keeping those 
animals! She feeds them all over everywhere, over the front 
fence out in the street, and that makes them so turbulent. They 
are all the time rooting and grunting round the fences. Sam 
says I ought to have them removed. It is mighty provoking. 

But what mignificent nights! I walk the porch alone, till 
late. How very beautiful the moonlight streaming through 
the young foliage of your elms and ash-trees. So still,—so 
peaceful. Everything quiet but this raging heart! Let me 
hear from you by return mail. 


May 26, 1869. 
DEAR LAuRA: 

They say a Commencement is to be gotten up, out of what 
materials does not appear. The grounds have been put in 
beautiful order. I never saw it look nicer. There are only 
three students, two Pools and a Guthrie. The rest are preps. 
McIver has gone to work reading law. He proposed to Mr. 
Argo last week they should read together. 


164 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


At the railroad meeting Saturday, McIver voted against 
Pool on every measure. 


In another letter to Mrs. Charles Phillips, three 
weeks later : 


I am as sorry for Mr. McIver as I can be. He is an honest, 
clever, and good man, who needs to be taken hold of by the right 
handle. He won’t bend to anybody, nor be druv, but he can 
be influenced along. I must say, I like and respect him. He 
has been horribly disappointed here. What did you think of 
my last Pen and Ink? Mr. Mclver says, “Every word of 
it is good.” 

CuHapeL Hit, June 14, 1869. 
DEAR LAuRA: 


It is Monday morning, the wind is blowing fair and free. 

I went out just now fora turn in the garden. There were light 
showers last night. The larkspur, white jasmine and holly- 
hocks were in their glory, and the cabbages on a broad grin. 
I am sitting at your especial window. The mimosa is in 
bloom. : 
Well, we have had our Commencement, and are resting from 
its pleasing pains and fatigues. There never was such a grand, 
(and to us and our side, delightful) fizzle as Commencement 
has been. 

For two or three weeks the faculty have talked of nothing 
but the Inauguration. Holden and Grant were both coming. 
They industriously circulated through the country that there 
would be a free supper Commencement night. Mrs. Pool said 
herself she would prepare supper for a hundred people. Pool 
ordered hacks to be in waiting at the train in Durham for forty 
people. Nobody came. Thursday ten trustees, and seven 
others arrived. But the Sentinel will tell you all that. I do 
not remember a word I wrote to that, I wrote in such haste, and 
with such vexatious interruptions. I am afraid it is spiteful. 
The letter to the Wilmington Journal is better. However, we 
all felt like rejoicing a little. 


PIGHT FOR UNIVERSITY 165 


Rodman* was very emphatic with the reminder that these 
men were here provisionally. Holden said in his speech that 
the people should be taxed to support the University even if 
they would not support it, and Rodman said in the afternoon 
that it could not be done. 

McIver told me, this Saturday morning, that Pool 
says that Rodman did not use the word provisional, and 
encourages himself to hold on. MclIver said he could not 
bear to hear them talk. He is satisfied the game is up, here. 
I told him if he had heard all that Professor Kerr had said, he 
would be even more certain. Kerr clapped his hands together 
and exulted when he heard of Rodman’s saying “Provisional 
and temporary.” Kerr laughed so at the idea of Installation, 
saying there had been no idea of such a thing except at Chapel 
Hill. Pool’s speech, prepared for his inaugural, was all I have 
said of it in the papers. McIver said it was “sophomoric, 
hifalutin, and commonplace.’’ Holden went up and congratu- 
lated him. Rodman said not a word. 

By the way, Judge Rodman sent me a very polite message, 
wished to call, but had so few hours here he could not do so. 
He told Mr. McIver the Sketches were beautifully written and 
had more good clear sense than anything he had read in many 
a day. Aha! Also Professor Kerr said they had done immense 
good, were greatly sought after, and read, and were delightful. 
I have had several letters to that effect from old students. One 
says at the close, “Tell your brother he knows not the good 
he has done, by his Sketches of the University.” I will hereby 
divide the credit between Charles and Sam! It was so well 
done of Chapel Hill people to stand aloof, and let the world 
see they would not sanction this crew. Rodman alluded to the 
absence of the townsfolk as another proof of the prostration 
of the University. Miss Ann Watson spent Commencement 
day with us, and said, ‘““Some of ’em asked me if I would not 
go to the Chapel, and I said, “If I did, Id rise right up in my 
place and say, this is no Commencement, and that is no 
Faculty.’ 


3 William B. Rodman, Justice of the Supreme Court of North 
Carolina from 1868, and later. 


166 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


Rev. Mr. Jenkins, who used to be Methodist minister here, 
is here on a visit to his old flock. He and his wife refused to 
go to the Chapel. He said, “Pool need not expect Methodists 
to support him, they were too much ashamed of such a repre- 
sentation.” Englehardt of the Wilmington Journal has opened 
a forty-gun battery on the University. Last week it was “In- 
fested by pismires” this week it is “presided over by nincom- 
poops.” Mrs. Carr said she met Mr. Woods [a half brother 
of Holden’s] on the street, Commencement day, and said 
“Mr. Woods this looks like our Commencement, now don’t it?” 
He said, “Oh, it’s all those horrid pieces in the papers that has 
done it. The Wilmington Journal is out today with a most 
horrid piece, and I expect Mrs. Spencer is swallowing it down 
like hot cakes, this minute.” 

You all saw the Appeal in the Sentinel, of course. Well, 
it hurt them more than anything that has appeared. Touch a 
man’s pocket and you touch a vital point. Pool and his subs 
were furious. Professor Kerr said it had a good effect abroad. 
McIver said it was powerful, and moreover only one person in 
the state could have written it, and that was Dr. Hubbard. 
I replied that I could swear that Dr. Hubbard never saw it until 
it was in print. McIver said I must be mistaken. 

Pool and Mason got up a rejoinder, for the Standard—at- 
tacking Dr. Hubbard, and Argo, and the old faculty and the 
old times, and me. They said the old faculty plundered the col- 
lege, that I and my brothers, its beneficiaries and educated at 
its expense, were now showing ingratitude. Dr. Mitchell chief 
plunderer, Dr. Hubbard waiting around in hopes of getting 
back, etc., etc. 

Soon after Dr. Hubbard came, McIver asked his advice 
about resigning. The Dr. advised him to hold on for the 
present. Brewer is going off to Cornell and Yale and Harvard 
to get up “plans and ideas.’”’ I asked McIver how he was to put 
them in practice. Said he didn’t know. I said all of them 
ought to go together, and I would write their travels for them 
when they returned, and call it, “Travels of a Faculty in search 
of a College.’’ McIver laughed as loud as anybody. 


FIGHT FOR UNIVERSITY 167 


Let me not forget to tell you that Mason went up on the 
stage at Commencement and sat down among the trustees. 
Town folks are so mad about it. And it is a fact that Patrick 
burst open the door of the Phi Society to get the velvet rugs, 
and a piece of carpeting. And it is a fact that furniture was 
taken out of the halls for the faculty parlors. They had taken 
the large velvet arm chairs, but on consideration sent them 
back Wednesday afternoon. I asked Will Barham, (who 
resigned Friday and can therefore speak out) if it was all 
true, and he said it was. It was done openly the Saturday 
before, the servants carrying the things about by broad day- 
light. Will Barham said Mrs. Patrick said in his hearing, 
“Wait till I get my parlour fixed, and I am as big a frog as 
any in the pond.” You have never seen people more enraged 
than our villagers over the furniture raid at college. Mr. 
Mclver declined, and is reported to have said, when it was pro- 
posed, that the trustees might sit on split bottomed chairs at 
his house before he would use the Society’s things. 

Have just read Saturday’s Sentinel. It is not as sharp as 
I feared it was, perhaps all the better for that. When your 
Commencement at Davidson comes I hope you will give me as 
full an account as I have done. I wish I could stereotype this 
letter for all the other ex-Chapel Hillians, Mrs. Swain, Mrs. 
Battle, Eliza Mitchell and all. 


The letters which are preserved in that famous trunk 
are but a very small portion of those which Mrs. Spencer 
was writing all along, during this part of her life. She 
says that letter writing was her greatest pleasure. She 
was a terrible person to have for an enemy, with her 
kindly fairness, joined with an earnest determination to 
leave no word unsaid that could help display the defi- 
ciencies of those pigmies, in her estimation, who were try- 
ing to fill the seats of the mighty. Somewhere she 
describes Chapel Hill as being now given up to pigs and 
pigmies. 


168 OLD IDAYSIIN GHAPRT Ther 


Besides the regular Pen and Ink Sketches of the Um- 
versity, which were appearing twice a week about this 
time, there was a series of humorous mis-spelled letters, 
purporting to come from one of the students of Mr. 
Pool’s University, whose name was “Billy Barlow.” 
These were very comic, and were the work of the Mr. 
Argo she mentions as a son-in-law of Dr. Hubbard. 
But she wrote also many paragraphs, half columns vari- 
ously signed, parodies on popular songs, and anything 
that would present a different point of view. Here is one: 


Commencement at Chapel Hill—We allude to the Com- 
mencement of the Colored School. They had a procession, 
speeches and a dialogue and a fine supper, accompanied with 
music from the Fayetteville Brass Band, eclipsing the Uni- 
versity not only in music, but in number of students and 
som'p’n to eat. 


Here is a bit of “Billy Barlow,” which Mrs. Spencer 
surely inspired: 


“T hev hearn thet the Perfessers made a raid on the Fie 
Cersiety Hall & tuk the cheers & cyarpits. Perfesser McIver 
who is a Die sed he didn’t care a red cent what the Trustees 
sot on. Split bottom cheers was good enough fer him. Ef 
Trustees didn’t like em they might set on the floor, en so the 
Die hall was not bummed so bad as the Fie. One new student 
is come to jine the spellin’ class.” 


Writing again to her old friend in Raleigh: 


Cuapret Hix, June 22, 1869. 
Dear Mrs. SwaltIn: 


The mimosas are in bloom, but your mimosa is not. I 
never think about that tree without rage. I hope you enjoyed 
the accounts in the papers of Pool’s attempt at a Commence- 
ment—a complete fizzle. Do you read “Billy Barlow?” Mr. 
Argo is the man. 


FIGHT FOR UNIVERSITY 169 


Great efforts were made to get the country people in by 
starting reports that Grant was certainly coming. It is quite 
true that furniture was stolen from the Society Halls to fur- 
nish the faculty’s parlors. 

Patrick sent to Mary Barbee to demand the College melo- 
deon, sent to her to keep. I saw the note to her, and there 
were two words in it mis-spelled! 

Well! Can it last? That is the question. Mclver tells 
me Pool encourages all hands with great hopes for next 
session. If no students come then, they will have to give up 
the University, but he says he won’t do that. I am approach- 
ing the last number of the Pen and Ink Sketches. The next 
one tells of Ellie’s marriage—a delicate topic when all the 
parties are living. But I was advised not to omit it, as the 
truth had never been generally known. 

Professor Kerr* tells me I have done great good in awaken- 
ing interest in the University, and that these sketches are uni- 
versally read and enjoyed. 

There is a valuable book of the Governor’s at Mrs. Saun- 
ders’ containing history of the University collected by himself. 
These new comers are exceedingly anxious to get hold of all 
such things. If you will give me authority I will get it for 
you at once. 

June 26, 1869. 


About Ellie’s wedding, dear Mrs. Swain, I always told the 
Governor I meant to tell all about it some day, in the papers, 
to which he would say, “When I am dead, you may.” I 
think that neither you nor he ever knew how he was blamed 
for allowing the marriage. Professor McIver was telling me 
about that this spring. He said its effect, told as it was, 
with every variety of falsehood and exaggeration, was very 
great against the Governor and his college. 


# Professor W. C. Kerr was State Geologist, and was the only 
member of the faculty who was not removed by the Holden Govern- 
ment. His office as State Geologist was left to him, and he was a 
most useful and able man in this line until his death fifteen years after 
the War. His daughter Alice was a beloved young friend of Mrs. 
Spencer’s, and they seem to have been among her most prized 
intimates. 


170 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


He repeated to me as truths which he had hitherto believed 
some most ridiculous tales. I have been afraid of saying too 
much, but it is due to Governor Swain to say as much as I 
have. 

I think the dear Governor was supremely indifferent to the 
gossip and scandal. I suppose you know that there are people 
who still believe that Ellie was married in finery that had 
been torn from the backs of Chapel Hill ladies. Once the 
Governor showed me a letter he had received to this effect. 
He would shake his head and say, “No need to correct such 
things, let them pass.” But there are plenty of people who 
will be glad to know the truth. 

I am writing for men to read, men who are at a distance, 
men who have never heard the truth, nor had a chance to know. 

Dear and honored Governor Swain. I am glad that I 
knew such a man once, glad that I learned to know him so well. 


A letter of family chat has in the midst of it the fol- 
lowing, written to Mrs. Phillips: | 
July 14, 1869. 


Professor McIver has gone to Moore County. [This is 
the part of North Carolina belonging to the Scotch settlers. ] 

You know that Pool has resigned his revenue office. McIver 
advised him to let go of the presidency. Pool said that all 
North Carolina cannot make him do that. McIver says Pool 
thinks North Carolina has underrated him and he means to 
show what he can do. They say they expect students next 
session, say one hundred or one hundred fifty. Well! We 
shall see! 

Sally Caudle lives with the Brewers. Reports them as 
poorfolksy. Miss Brewer, Professor Brewer’s sister, has come 
on to take the negro school. Patrick gave a Fourth-of-July 
supper out in his yard—That yard! The Mclvers did not go. 
Chaney made all the cake. She says with indignation that they 
never offered her a crumb. Mr. Pool asked the blessing. 

Last Sunday I dreamed that I had a visit from Napoleon 
Bonaparte! He was very clever and chatty, and took much 
notice of June. I told him that when she was an old lady, a 


PIGHT FOR UNIVERSITY 17] 


grandmother, she would brag of this visit, and how she had 
seen Napoleon when she was a little girl. The interview was 
so life-like, and Napoleon so like his portraits, and what we 
read of him at St. Helena, that I feel ready to brag that I too 
have seen and talked with him. 

Now what could have instigated such a dream? I had 
neither been thinking nor reading about him. One of the 
curiosities of dreaming is that we are never surprised at these 
extraordinary happenings. I was as easy with the Emperor as 
if he had been an old friend. 


CHapet Hix, August 6, 1869. 
DEAR LAURA: 


Pool announces that there will be from 60 to 80 
students in the next session. We shall see! Brewer has re- 
turned in time for his election on the School Committee. Loss- 
ing writes me that he has “had the pleasure of meeting one of 
your Professors, I forgot his name” at a grand philological 
convention at Poughkeepsie, N. Y. 

Brewer has been round to Commencements, etc., at the 
North trying to get up steam some way. I do not believe the 
story of Mrs. Patrick’s going about bare-footed, and I told 
Governor Graham and Governor Morehead both so, but they 
would not believe it! But it is a fact that Martling goes about 
bare-footed. He is seen continually on his front piazza sitting 
bare-footed with his pants rolled up to his knees. 

Mrs. Patrick is a great tobacco chewer and dipper, but she 
does not go bare-foot. 


The Mr. Lossing mentioned, was Benjamin Lossing, 
the historian, with whom Mrs. Spencer became ac- 
quainted in connection with her Ninety Days. They kept 
up a pleasant correspondence, and it was he who after- 
wards offered to “let her revise his history of the Civil 
War, and he would subscribe to it.’”’ He did send her 
his school history for her corrections, when a new edition 
was in preparation. 


172 OLD: DAYS IN CHAREL. AIEt 


August 26, 1869. 
DEAR CHARLES: | 

I wished I could have written to you on Saturday night to 
give you my impression of the eclipse [of the sun]. I have 
seen no such spectacle in my life, and never shall again till the 
heavens be no more. My pervading feeling was one of intense 
overpowering solemnity. It was indeed awful; I could not 
read my watch during the totality. Mr. McIver says it was 
over two minutes. I could not remark the beauty of the scene, 
so much was my mind impressed with its solemnity and gran- 
deur, and struck with the brilliance of the returning sun. It 
seemed to blaze out so gladly. 

By the way, McIver says many of the Siamese curiosities 
in the University museum, given by Dr. McGilvary [mission- 
ary to Siam] have disappeared since he came. He was here 
yesterday, and sat a long time. He says he sees at present no 
hope for the University, but he thinks all sparring in the news- 
papers were best stopped. He says opposition keeps it alive, 
and nothing else. People say that the Trustees of the Uni- 
versity will dismiss these men next November, but Mclver 
says they cannot, although he knows the Board wants them dis- 
missed. Holden will sustain his President. Holden, and 
Holden alone, put Pool where he is. McIver is ashamed of 
his position and has taken advice as to quitting, has been ad- 
vised to hold on for awhile. McIver is an amiable man, a 
moderate man, and a very clear-headed man. I say again, I 
like him, but I do wish he were more of a gentleman in his 
exterior. 

I have had an application from one of the expected stu- 
dents to give him an Algebra, as he was not able to buy him- 
self one. They may get twenty of sucha class. But no one in 
Chapel Hill thinks they will get twenty. Pool announces 
that they have over fifty applications. 

I have just written to Mrs. Swain. It is the anniversary 
of the Governor’s fall. 


Writing to Mrs. Charles Phillips on August 26, after 


three long pages all about fruit, sugar, and methods of 
canning, Mrs. Spencer breaks off: 


FIGHT FOR UNIVERSITY 173 


Here I was interrupted for twenty minutes by one of our 
poor market women from the country. She came in lugging 
a great basket full of beautiful soft peaches on one arm, and 
a large bag of snaps [string beans] on the other. Can’t sell 
either. Went to Martling’s, and was offered five cents for the 
peaches. Says she wishes “somebody would take and shoot 
Pool and the rest of them, a-perishing of people up as they do.” 

Do let me tell you a story. Martling, you must know, 
has a great pile of wood yet left of those dear old oaks. 
Negro man went to get the job of cutting it up. Martling 
offered ten cents a load. Twenty to. twenty-five cents is the 
regular price. Brewer standing by offered the same price. 
Negro refused to do it at that price. “Well,” says Martling, 
“Tam inno hurry. There'll be plenty of students here when 
session opens, glad enough to do it for ten cents and pay their 
board.” 

After I had gone down with the woman to give her a 
mouthful of bread and to keep the dog off her as she left, I 
came back again. Eighteen boys at prayers yesterday, none 
from abroad. I asked Miss Nancy Hilliard how her boarders 
looked. She said, “When fodder-pulling time comes they 
will all go home. They call the college the School House.” 


She continues the letter on August 27: 


DEAR LAURA: 


Do you remember that this is the anniversary of our dear 
friend the Governor’s death? Our dear Governor Swain! The 
more I recall him the more I am impressed with a sense of his 
goodness, his kindness, his amiability toward all men. 

I was surprised by a visit from McIver last Saturday, 
bringing in tow a late Davidson graduate, a Mr. Hoffman, a 
warm personal friend of Mclver’s now in the Treasury De- 
partment at Raleigh. 

There was evidently an air of concealed exultation about 
the Professor as he introduced his ally, as who should say, 
“Here’s somebody from Davidson who knows a thing or two. 
Only see, he has come all the way from Raleigh to pay his 
respects to me.”’ 


174 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


However, he accounted for bringing him by saying he 
wished him to see a good specimen of the Old Régime and so 
brought him to be introduced to Mrs. Spencer. I taught 
Mclver’s Sunday School class last Sunday, his youngest child 
being very sick. Ma went to see the child twice, and reported 
it very bad off. Mrs. McIver much distressed, and the father 
too, but he would not have a doctor. It is getting well, but 
had a severe case of diphtheria. He treated it himself, with 
kerosene rubbed on the throat and strong salt water gargle. 

What do you think of the Pool and Holden correspondence, 
alluded to in Wednesday’s Sentinel? Pool has been in Ra- 
leigh all the week. He and Holden fixed it up across the table, 
down there. 

The Ku Klux paid a visit to Chapel Hill and stoned old 
“Dr. November’s’ house by mistake. Chapel Hill people had 
nothing to do with it, in spite of that long article in the Stan- 
dard [Holden’s paper]. A few of the Chapel Hill boys went 
to follow the Ku Klux around and were sternly ordered off. 
The K. K.’s all came from Chatham County. 

It was that which sent Pool to Raleigh in a vain attempt 
to get the Militia. Our magistrates would not sign a petition 
for it, and Holden would not send it without. 


CHAPEL HILL, September 8, 1869. 
DEAR LAURA: 

Julian Carr paid me a long visit Monday. He 
ae the two or three boys who came here prepared for college 
are disgusted. Whitted from Henderson County says he has 
no use for the faculty because they do not teach anything. 
I wrote a dozen or so lines to the Sentinel, very quiet and statis- 
tical, giving the number of students, and nothing more. Signed 
them “J.W.” Pool and Co. flew down to John White and 
Jones Watson. J. W. certainly pointed to them. So Jones 
and John wrote to the Sentinel begging him to tell the world 
they are innocent. J. W. is coming out again. It flows out, 
in a pome which I hope you will read. The Mclver stock is 
going down also. A story is going the rounds about him which 
is every word true. They all expected fifty to one hundred 
students, and McIver sent to Philadelphia for certain books of 


FIGHT FOR UNIVERSITY 175 


which he had some copies, but not enough for all the college. 
Watson gets them at Durham, C. O. D., pays freight and 
brings them over to McIver to be repaid. Our Scotchman, 
not choosing to have the loss of books for which there was no 
market, refused to take them. Watson had to keep the books 
and he put them in Mickle’s hands to sell for him at one dollar, 
at which price he could clear himself. McIver told Mickle 
that the price for that book was $1.75, and if he offered them 
for $1.00 he would change the course of study so that they 
could not be used. 

The Agricultural lectures are to begin Monday. Wonder 
who delivers them, nobody knows. 

Brewer has bought him a fine horse, and rides about. 

Pool said last week that he did not want more than fifty 
students. Dear—Dear—Dear! It is hard to live here and be 
a Christian isn’t it? I went to the Episcopal Church last Sun- 
day and joined them at Communion, having asked permission. 
I sat there in my seat, shedding many tears. I believe I 
was the only person there present who was there when the 
church was consecrated by Bishop Ives. About a dozen at 
Church. 

The Ku Klux were after Ben Edwards who was denounced 
in Chatham. It proves there were no Chapel Hillians in the 
crowd, because they mistook November’s house for Ben’s. 

I sent Mr. Lossing the portrait of Governor Swain, care- 
fully enveloped in stiff newspaper, the Nouveau Monde. He 
writes that it had been opened, presumably in the Chapel Hill 
post office, and the portrait badly torn. 

What is to become of our poor people. They are already 
beginning their piteous stories. Julian Carr says he never 
felt so gloomy as he does now. . . . 


October 4, 1869. 
Dear Mrs. Swain: 
After Brother Charles went back to Davidson, in August, 
I felt as if I did not care to write to anybody. I had fallen into 
a sort of lethargy, and could not rouse myself. . . . 
Mr. Pool was very much mortified by the adverse resolu- 
tions of our town meeting! It was a burst out of all the pent 


“ 
176 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL TICE 


up indignation of the past year—but I doubt if it does any 
good. Mr. Pool went to Mr. Mickle last week, saying he had 
come to have a Christian talk with him. Mr. Mickle said he 
gave him a very plain talk! 

Mr. Pool was staggered by that meeting, and has descended 
from his high horse perceptibly. He says he has bought prop- 
erty, and settled here, and wished to educate his children here 
—It would be hard on him to have to move. 

He was asked how it would be any harder on him than on 
Professor Fetter or Professor Phillips or any of the others 
who were turned out of their own owned homes here. 

October 19, 1869. 
DeEarR LAuRA: 

I received the other day a great gratification, and a great 
surprise. A small box by express, containing a letter from a 
stranger, an old North Carolinian in Alabama, who left this 
state thirty-six years ago, being now seventy-seven years old. 

He has been reading the Pen and Ink Sketches republished 
in the North Carolina Presbyterian, all summer, with “inex- 
pressible delight.” “Having known and loved all the great and 
good men mentioned, especially my Father’ and to express to 
me his “admiration and regard for me as well as to signify 
his sympathy in the degradation of the college, and his vener- 
ation for the men who made the University what it was’’ he 
inclosed a very massive plain gold ring, having engraved on 
the inside, ‘In memory of the University of N. C. as it was. 
Caldwell, Phillips, Mitchell, Hooper, Swain. <A tribute to- 
Mrs. C. P. Spencer.” 113 letters are engraved on the inside, 
and very beautifully done. I do not think I ever had anything 
to please me more. You know how it touches me. 


The ring, taken from Mrs. Spencer’s hand, is still in 
existence. In December, 1869, Mrs. Swain, who had 
moved away finally from Chapel Hill, had her husband’s 
and daughter Annie’s remains exhumed, and removed to 
the Old Cemetery at Raleigh, where they now lie. To 
this, the following letter alludes: 


1 The name of this man was William Huntington. 


FIGHT FOR UNIVERSITY 177 


December 20, 1869. 
Dear Mrs. SwaIin: 

I feel as if I must congratulate you on having your dead 
together, and near you. I did hope, though against hope, that 
the time might come within a year or two that you would feel 
willing to let the remains of your beloved and honored hus- 
band remain here where his life work was done. 

But of late the signs are too evident of no sense of grati- 
tude, or even of decent remembrance and respect. Last Wed- 
nesday night I sat by the fire thinking of Governor Swain, and 
what he was, and what he had done here. My thoughts were 
very bitter, but I believe that after the gloom and foul weather, 
so surely as the sun will shine, shall the day come when he 
shall be rewarded with outspoken love and gratitude of the 
whole State. I only hope to live to see that day. 

In a letter received from Charles yesterday he said, “‘Gov- 
ernor Swain had more constructive ability and efficiency in his 
little finger than all these men put together who govern 
Davidson.” 


XIV 
CONTINUED HOSTILITIES 


HE LIFE of one who is poised ready to pounce on 
some word or deed of an enemy is not a happy nor 
an easy one. Mrs. Spencer, although she felt that this 
was her mission, does not enjoy it and would have been 
a happy woman in some serener, more congenial atmos- 
phere. She does, however, make all that she can of the 
infinitesimal happenings day by day in poor little Chapel - 
Hill. Only one of her letters has so far been given at full 
length, namely the one to Miss North, in 1866. Here 1s 
another, whole and unabridged, showing her interest in 
her fellow villagers: 


CuapeL Hitt, Friday, December 18, 1869. 
Dear LAURA: 


This is Friday night, and no letter to you can get off 
before next Monday, yet I begin one, hesitating as I begin 
whether to say, Dear Laura or Dear Charles. 

This afternoon, I took June and we went to Miss Annie 
Craig’s to give the old lady a nice dotted muslin cap, with 
lace border, I had made for her—a Christmas present. When 
I went over to see her after old Mrs. Watson’s death, and 
told her about her being buried in the cap you had given her, 
Miss Annie got up and brought out that cap of your mother’s 
you had sent her. She said it had been so much worn since 
you gave it to her, she was afraid it would not serve her to 
be buried in, but she had no other nice cap. Then and there 
I resolved to make her one, and if all Christmas presents made 
in New York next week give each party as much pleasure as 
the cap I carried Miss Annie this evening, there will be a 
large sum total. 

Then we walked along the lane, past William Hutchings, 
and down Uncle November’s street on our way to Mrs. Hub- 


CONTINUED HOSTILITIES 179 


bard’s; when, at Dr. November’s, we were arrested by Miss 
Belle Hutchings standing gossiping with Aunt Chaney, over 
her fence. I stopped at once, of course, to hear the chat, and 
found Aunt Chaney was giving an account of Captain Free- 
land’s wedding last night, she having been chief cook, and 
knowing to everything. Belle and I picked her quite clean of 
news. Bride dressed in stone-colored merino, trimmed in 
green, white wreath on hair being the only bridal adornment. 
Captain Freeland much agitated—his little girl cried manfully. 
Mrs. Marcom, late Yancey, present in high feather. Quite a 
little crowd of friends, Carrs, etc., etc. Mr. Stone, father 
of the bride, was married in Martin County a few weeks ago. 
He was there but did not bring his bride. No waiters, unless 
Mr. Norwood was one. A very suitable match everybody 
says. f 

I hear Lucy Bullock is to be married in a few days to 
young Riggsby, and it is confidently asserted that Caroline 
Mallett is preparing her wedding clothes. Dowd was here 
again last week. I suppose it is true. Well!—Then June and 
I came on past the President’s. All very fine, painted and fenced 
in marvellous style. June squeezed my hand and pointed 
over at it derisively, and then, to my surprise and indignation, 
she spit towards the mansion, and said “Yonder’s the dog 
kennel.” I was dumbfounded, I assure you. She doesn’t 
get such as that from me. Does she? 

We found Mrs. Hubbard alone waiting for Mattie’s return 
from Macauley’s mill. Presently she came in, and then they 
made us have supper with them. The nicest light biscuits, 
bread, souse with mustard dressing, raspberry jam and cream. 
Twas so nice you know! 

Then I heard Dr. Hubbard’s last two or three letters. He 
has been to a Ministerial Convention at Oswego, New York. 
Host’s dining room windows looked out on Lake Ontario, 
everything beautiful, delightful. Dr. Hubbard said, “I had a 
glorious time, was cordially received by my brother clergy, 
some of whom I found to be clever fellows.”” He seemed to be 
comfortably situated at Manlius . . . finds the people grow 
upon him—is in first rate health and good spirits, etc. 


180 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


These letters, and my last news from you and the Fetters 
being discussed over and over, we fell upon home talk. Mattie 
told me that she had been stopped in the street by John Watson 
today to tell her the news—that a new professor had been 
elected to the Agricultural College, and a negro at that. How- 
ever it was but next door to a negro. I had had a visit from 
Mrs. McIver before I went out this afternoon and she had 
given me the facts. 

Who do you and Charles think the new professor is? How 
amused you will be! No less than your friend, Friend Dickson, 
the English Quaker, negro school teacher, and agent. I hope 
you have not heard it before so I may enjoy seeing your amaze. 
You must make your own comments. I have nothing to add! 

Margaret Lewis came up from Henderson today. You 
know she has been cook at the Fetter’s. She brought her 
sister Rhina tea, coffee, sugar, flour; bedclothes too from the 
girls. I am so glad—also a kind note to her from Sue. Kate 
wrote me, and sent June scraps of all their new dresses which 
are handsome. I shall lay out your fifty cents in whiskey for 
Rhina, if I can get any, for it is the hardest thing to get these 
days. She needs a stimulant now and then so much. She is 
better this week, will be very grateful to you I know. 

Mrs. Adams came into my room today and sat down and 
began to cry. She told me, “Poor Charley is gone’’—was 
released Saturday night from his long and piteous sufferings. 
“Yes” she sobbed, “He is gone at last, his life is done, and 
he never seed no pleasure in it.” 

Doesn’t that strike you as very pitiful? I remember our 
dear Mrs. Hall saying once that our grief was deeper and more 
poignant on losing one who left no pleasant joyful memories 
behind, than when the departed had been a great blessing, 
had enjoyed much. For there was nothing pleasant to look 
back upon, nothing softening or comforting in the anguish. 
Mrs. Adams made that remark about her poor boy, and dwelt 
with such anguish on the long struggle his life had been, with 
disease and poverty. He died very serenely and happily, thank- 
ing them for all their kindness and expressing a good hope. 
He suffered much for stimulants. No whiskey could be got for 


CONTINUED HOSTILITIES 181 


love or money. The people are all struck with the swift 
stern course of the United States law. There will be few 
egg-nogs made this Christmas I guess. 

The crippled soldier, Sykes, is near his end. His wife 
came here last week. He made a profession of religion she 
says. 

The Methodists are going to have a Christmas tree and 
supper next week, to fix up their church. Everybody has been 
importuned to help. I got a letter from James [Phillips] today. 
He says he is coming down next Friday to spend Christmas 
with us. We will be glad to see him. June is mightily ex- 
cited. 

I did not remember your wedding day. My mind and 
heart have been so torn up by the roots I seem to take less 
and less note of days, times, and seasons. But as I read your 
letter and Charles’s recalling the anniversary, I walked over 
to Judge Battle’s [Mrs. Charles Phillips’ brother’s house] 
and went into the house, and stood in the echoing empty parlor, 
and conjured up the wedding party, and the faces. “All, all, 
are gone, the old familiar faces.” 

I went up into Sue’s old room, and stood looking vacantly 
‘round it. On the floor lay a note. I picked it up, addressed 
to Miss C. A. Phillips, and Mr. and Mrs. Edward Mallett; 
would be pleased to see me at their house, 1851! Where did 
this little reminder of the past come from? How came it 
there? Poor dear Sue! If those four walls could speak! I 
believe I am more overcome with sadness when I go down 
there, and over that house, than anywhere else in Chapel Hill. 

Mrs. McIver has told me that a neat marble monument has 
been put this past week over those of the Mitchell family, 
buried in her garden. She and I agreed it was a pity they 
were there, and not in the graveyard. 

Our Governor Swain and his daughter Annie’s bodies were 
removed to Raleigh this week. It rained hard all day Wednes- 
day, and strange to say that was the day appointed to exhume 
them. And when done, towards night, after it was finished, 
where do you suppose the bodies were placed for the night? 
In the barn! By Patrick’s order I hear, although both the 


182 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILU 


offices were vacant. Fred Lane attended to it. Very few peo-. 
ple in town knew it was being done, or know it now, I believe. 
Dear Governor Swain! I should like to stop, now, and have 
a good fit of crying, as I think of many things. 

Poor Edward Martin I have not seen this week. He cer- 
tainly looks much better than last summer. But he has no 
voice, no strength, no digestion. Mrs. Thompson thinks him 
in the last stages of his disease. I cannot judge, knowing less 
of his weak condition—but it looks as if she were right. 

My cough is better. I should give Susie something for 
her’s. Mrs. Argo says, dip the tip of your finger in spirits of 
turpentine and touch as low down on her tongue as you can 
reach with it. It is certain cure of that tickling sensation which 
causes the hard, explosive, dry cough. I give you that in 
return for your “two eggs.” 

Charles asks for news of “Judge’’ Owen. He has been 
teaching a country school for a year past at Major William 
Patterson’s. He sent to me for a French grammar, and I 
sent him—Bolmar! I thought that would be about the date 
of his French! If by any chance he had been elected one of 
the professors here, there would have been some show of sense 
in it. Mrs. McIver told me they had washed their hands of 
the University, and were down on tt. 

Sunday night—June and I have just returned from sitting 
with Ed Martin. He was coughing incessantly. Mrs. Thomp- 
son says she is put to it to get something for him to eat that 
he can eat, and she has very little money. 

Does Charles know the whereabouts of J—A— and of | 
B— T—s son McKay? They both owe her a good round sum 
for board—years ago. 

Mrs. Thompson has all the substantials, but you need money 
to buy delicacies. . . 

Love to the children. I trust that they at least will have 
a merry Christmas. June is anticipating Christmas quite rap- 
turously but I have provided nothing, not a single thing for 
her stocking except a little book I purchased from a colporteur 
from the Tract Society. I have made a nice large pincushion 


CONTINUED HOSTILITIES 183 


for Aunt Dilsey, a hood for Mrs. Adams out of one of my 
old black frocks, and that is the extent of my Christmas prep- 
arations. 

I am yours affectionately, 


CE Ss 


Apologizing for a letter filled with small matters, 
Mrs. Spencer wrote on another occasion, “‘All this seems 
very trivial, but what would you have? One cannot al- 
ways be talking about the Solar System.” 

One explanation is due of the “‘offices’’ mentioned in 
the foregoing letter. These were the customary bachelor 
quarters of southern mansions, and were placed at the 
sides, or corners of the front yards, for the convenience 
of the young men visitors, or the youths of the family. 
They were usually one-roomed houses with fireplaces, 
matching the construction of the Great House. 

The fulfilment of the command of Christ to “forgive 
your enemies,” was a living obligation to many southern 
women at least. We have heard it discussed before. 
Here is another reaction to the problem in a letter of 
about this time to Mrs. C. A. Phillips: 

Mrs. Newton had a sister to die this winter, who had 
taken her name off the church book soon after the Surrender, 
and who never had it put back; because she never had been 
able to say her prayers again, or forgive the enemy. And she 
died suddenly, without a word of reconciliation. 

I think there could be few afflictions greater than such a 
thing as this. Mrs. Newton says her old mother is in despair 
about it. 


The disintegration of the old institution, under its 
management of the time, continued and went on apace. 
Mrs. Spencer watched it relentlessly. Her writings so 
far had not seemed to make much of a ripple on the 
downward flow, although they were so much read and 


184 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


praised. But she does not give up for a moment. When- 
ever there occurs anything which is of a nature to shock 
the alumni into action, or make more apparent the grow- 
ing discredit into which the experiment was falling, she 
would write it to the Sentinel in her incisive manner. To 
her brother and his wife and to Mrs. Swain she was in 
the habit of writing the news of each passing moment. 

The year 1870 was notable, for it saw the reaction 
against the radical policies of Holden and his friends, 
and change was in the air from the beginning of its 
calendar. 


In the very last days of 1869, Mrs. Spencer records: 


Pool has purchased Miss Nancy Hilliard’s house for one 
hundred and fifty dollars at public auction. Mr. Norwood was 
to blame for letting it go, and not bidding it in. I cannot under- 
stand how such a sale can be legal—No honest man would keep 
it. Poor Miss Nancy! I do not know what she means to do. 


Later, in March, 1870, she says: 


‘ Miss Nancy is in despair these days. She has no resources. 
In fact Chapel Hill was never quite so low. You may walk 
from end to end at eleven o’clock in the day, and not see six 
people. I am writing letters. It is the only thing I can do. 


These letters are to all those men whom she trusted, 
asking for ideas and plans of procedure for restoring the 
University, after it should be vacated by the rump fac- 
ulty which was holding it. Vance writes to her: 

Cuarorte, February 19, 1870. 
My Dear Mrs. SPENCER: 


. . . I will proceed to answer your question. “How can 
Chapel Fiill be redeemed?” I believe the next legislature 
will represent the true people of North Carolina, and that con- 
cern you have with you will feel the first and fiercest of public 
indignation. | am more in heart about public matters now than 


ne So a at o> 


CONTINUED HOSTILITIES 185 


I have been for years. I knew from the first that people would 
see some day that ignorance could not control. I can see the 
streaks of purple and gold in the east, thank God. 


But this was not what Mrs. Spencer was after. She 
herself could see the purple and gold full as well as Gov- 
ernor Vance. She wanted a distinct plan, and so she 
told him. In answer to this second letter Vance says: 


I hardly know whether to laugh or to cry over your slightly 
acidulated letter ; if I thought you were really hurt or mortified 
I would cry! Pray don’t “wash your hands of me,” I beg. 
When the University will be revived is one of the things now 
inscrutable. I think with something of malicious satisfaction 
of the failure of Pool and Holden, but contempt is too costly 
a thing to be wasted on such as they. I am glad you have 
resolved to stand fast. I hope you will abide there till the wheel 
has entirely turned. Surely that consummation is not far away. 


By this one can see that Vance is not theorizing 
about any such undertaking as Mrs. Spencer has at heart. 
She derives much more sustenance from Governor Gra- 
ham of Hillsborough. He here outlines precisely the 


plan which was eventually followed: 
September 29, 1870. 
My Dear Mapam: 

In regard to the University, in which I am pleased to 
find your interest suffering no abatement: I have thought, con- 
sidering the experience of the last two years, there is no hope 
of the revival of the University under the management of the 
present board of trustees, and that a convention to change the 
constitution would be necessary to effect this. I conceive, with 
you the necessity of re-establishing the institution as soon as 
practicable. 

I think I see already the want of the annual crop of im- 
partially educated young men we sent forth from our Com- 
mencements. 

What will be the most effective means to this end when 
authority shall permit action, will require more information 


186 OLD DANS UIN CHA RET ib: 


than I can command at present. I much incline to the system 
of educating downwards—and that more good may be ac- 
complished with limited means by endowing the University and 
sustaining it, than by expending the like amount in common 
schools, if both are not possible. 

Whether or not this be so, I am clearly of opinion that the 
grounds, groves, buildings, libraries, etc., of our University 
should not be allowed to lie in disuse any longer than want of 
power for restoration shall paralyse our energies. 


WILLIAM A. GRAHAM. 


Returning to the earlier months of 1870, we transcribe 
one of the chronicles written to her brother and sister: 


February 29, 1870. 


. . Mr. Argo says the days of this faculty are numbered. 
I told him I hoped it might be before they got all the trees cut 
down back of college. He said it was not known that they 
intended it, for he had not heard of the timber cutting till 
he came here. He does not think the trustees would permit 
it if they knew. Dickson’s appointment has never been rati- 
fied, or even brought before the Board. I certainly do medi- 
tate another article before long, and Argo says it will have a 
good effect just now, and help to kill off their old endowment 
bill of $400,000. 

If Charles has any assistance for me, let him send it on 
and keep dark. I have a great outrage to tell him of. Dorland, 
aided and abetted by two other students, at the close of last 
session broke open the doors of the Phi and Di Society ar- 
chive rooms and searched and scattered and otherwise abused 
and destroyed their papers! 

In vacation I went to the Di Hall with Mr. McIver and he 
called my attention to the kicked-in panels, etc., of the door, 
and characterized it as infamous, and appeared to suspect it 
had been done at the instance of some of the old Di’s to get 
hold of their private papers. I thought it likely enough my- 
self that was the case, but have since been told that it was 
certainly done by Dorland for spite! I met McIver again 
the other day, I wish you could have seen him as I met him; 


CONTINUED HOSTILITIES 187 


unshorn, unwashed, with a farm shirt on, unbuttoned at the 
neck, and his old hairy chest, white hairs at that, all open. 
Dirty brogans on his feet. You never saw quite such a pro- 
fessor. I stopped and spoke of going to the Di Library next 
week, and asked him if he had ever found out the author of 
the outrage on the two societies. He looked very much em- 
barrassed, but said that they had had reason to suspect Dor- 
land of it, but that in consequence of strict investigations had 
exonerated him. Did I know? I said yes, I did know, but de- 
clined to tell what I knew. He said twice, emphatically, that 
Dorland should not have been allowed to stay this session but 
for his clearing himself of this suspicion. How would the old 
Phi’s and Di’s like that news? 


To Mrs. Swain, she says: 
March 27, 1870. 


The stores all refuse the faculty any further credit, and 
Professor Patrick has declared openly that he expects the old 
concern will burst up in June—that he wishes it was now— 
for, “He ain't getting anything.’ Two or three of the stu- 
dents, such as they are, have left already. I saw the “Presi- 
dent” in church this morning, looking more sleepy and solemn 
than usual. 

June 13, 1870. 
DEAR CHARLES: 

; I suppose the Sentinel will give you an idea of 
Pools second Commencement, which was a greater failure 
than the first, except that they had a band, which attracted 
negroes and children. Only fourteen strangers, children and 
all, came. Mr. Merritt, passing Thursday, went up to hear 
Abbott speak, and said he counted 103—little negroes and big, 
whites and mulattoes all included. Thursday evening, D.D. 
was given to Mr. Purefoy,’ degrees to Dr. Closs and Mr. 
Merritt which the two latter refused to accept. The Standard 
will no doubt flourish it all. 

1 Mr. Purefoy was a Baptist preacher of Orange County; Dr. 
Closs was a Methodist preacher of Durham; Mr. Merritt was a trus- 


tee from Chatham County. He writes to Mrs. Spencer at Cambridge, 
in her old age, a letter of reminiscence. 


188 ORD DAYS TIN ICHARE TL TE 


James Taylor [one of the trustees] came to see me. I gave 
him a piece of my mind, so did the Misses Cole, so did Mrs. 
Barbee. He said he never was in so much hot water. He told 
me he found things better in some respects than he expected, 
worse in others. He said the faculty was incompetent, the col- 
lege a disgrace, and declared that Holden was the head and 
front of it all. The trustees had nothing to do with it, had 
not been allowed to do anything. But there should be a change, 
and that soon. He had a copy of Pool’s catalogue, with his 
addenda and corrections and commentaries. 

He said he did not ask for any statements—he knew what 
Pool claimed and did not believe him. 

I am told the marching ’round Dr. Caldwell’s monu- 
ment, the procession altogether was utterly and painfully ludi- 
crous. ... But they seem determined to go on. It was 
announced that $20 in gold would be given to the best scholar of 
next session. Everybody thinks this will be the end, but I 
think Pool will hang on. Taylor told me that Pool claimed 
that he and his faculty had been doing an immense amount of 
teaching, for thoroughness and painstaking devotion—nothing 
here had ever equalled it. 

O Charles, it is a most exasperating business to live here 
these days! I feel boiling at times with spite, rage and scorn. 
If I did not feel that anything so rotten must come to an end 
before long, I could not stay here. 

I wrote an editorial for the North Carolina Presbyterian, 
looking toward reunion [of the southern and northern branches 
of the church], as likely some of these days, and I have a 
letter from the editor by which I judge my remarks will not 
appear, unless purged. 

June 20, 1870. 
My Dear Laura: 


We have just seen Mrs. Hubbard and Mattie drive off this 
morning! “TJ feel like one who treads alone.” It is the end 
of an auld sang. I never realized until last Friday that Dr. 
Hubbard was indeed moved, and gone, and finally uprooted 
from his old home. I went into his study, and saw his books 
taken down from their accustomed shelves, and boxed up for 


CONTINUED HOSTILITIES 189 


transportation. Mrs. Hubbard threw up both her hands as 
we stood looking, and said: “It is all over, It is like death!” 
She and Mattie both wept as we stood by the hack a minute 
or two. Happy as are their prospects at present, and as much 
pleasure as they are anticipating this summer, still the thought 
underlying, of removal, and of loss of their home, made their 
departure bitter and painful. 

Mr. Argo showed us a long letter from poor Howell, damn- 
ing the men who had driven him from his poor little home 
here. In fact he rained so much retributive fire and brimstone 
on them all, from Pool down, that I was not so sorry for 
him as I would have been. . . . It is very dreary in Chapel 
Hill now, I can tell you; I should feel it too acutely to remain 
here, 1f [ did not have work to do. I shall be very busy, and 
hope to forget much that worries and depresses. 


August 21, 1870, she mentions that, “College has be- 
gun with fifteen students. I believe no day scholars. 
The common school being in operation takes care of 
them.” Sometimes Mrs. Spencer’s silences are strange. 
It was at this time that the Ku Klux were rampant in 
Orange and neighboring counties. It was now that Gov- 
ernor Holden, rendered desperate by his lack of control 
of the situation, had recruited troops from Tennessee, 
and had a young war on his hands, trying to subdue the 
insurgents. 

She alludes without comment, on Saturday, August 
3rd, thus: 


On last Saturday, a squad of militia marched in under Dr. 
Emery. I don’t know what his rank in the army is,—Adju- 
tant, I think. They are camped back of college. A number 
of county citizens have taken to the woods. Kirk [Holden’s 
Commander] is in Hillsboro’, F. Strudwick has bushed up for 
fear of arrest, Colonel William Saunders ditto. Our people are 
very mad. 


190 OLD DAYSIIN CHAPEL Etat 


In after years, these few sentences were written by 
her in her diary: | 

I have just read Tourgée’s Fool’s Errand. It is very smart, 
and the only book on this phase of the South and North that 
presents a true picture. He has done it very well. Tells the 
truth as nearly as a Carpetbagger and a Tourgée could be 
expected to do. I think he tried to be fair. 


And again she records: 


Logic hasn’t anything to say to the events of Reconstruc- 
tion. Prejudice, enmity, indignation, selfishness, dogmatism, 
all these came in, and with them much plain human nature. 


But it does not excuse a matter, when you merely 
give a good reason or two for it. These times sound 
very over-stressed, to read the plain facts. But many of 
the ingredients are not resolvable. ‘‘What a mistake it 
was, dear Sam’s joining the Republican Party,’ says 
Mrs. Spencer, thirty years after this time. “When I 
recall those days of humiliation, exasperation, and 
despair it does not seem so very long ago. How great 
was the revolution, that came suddenly!’ 

The election of the summer of 1870 brought in a 
majority for the Conservatives. Samuel Phillips, who 
ran for Attorney General, was beaten. He was, how- 
ever, a member of the House, in 1871. Kemp Battle of 
Raleigh, writing to Mrs. Spencer that same autumn, 
says: | 

Mr. Sam was nominated by the honest element of the 
Republican Party, led by Tod Caldwell [afterwards Governor 
of North Carolina]. It was a bitter pill for Holden. I regret 
as much as you do Mr. Sam’s false position before the country. 
I have not had such pain in years; but he is so truthful, hon- 


orable, and noble he will outlive the false impression of the 
present day. 


CONTINUED HOSTILITIES 191 


Just now, however, the public visits on him all Holden’s 
and the Carpetbagger’s sins. His motives were pure, but he 
could not realize the corruption of the party in power. He did 
not realize that he could not join the party without shouldering 
the imputations of their doings, with the hot-headed and un- 
thinking. 

Offences which Governor Holden was impeached for 
were political in their essence, however stated, and no 
more forbearance was shown him than in any other 
instance when party adversaries have so strongly the 
upper hand of a scapegoat, as they now had. Holden 
was convicted, deposed, and disfranchised. The strain 
that his rulings had placed upon society in North Caro- 
lina was no longer to be borne. It was put an end to, 
speedily, as was needful. To quote G. B. Shaw, “The 
degree of tolerance obtainable at any moment depends 
on the strain under which society is maintaining its 
cohesion.” With him went out—evaporated—the poor 
simulacrum of a University which he had _ fostered. 
Mrs. Spencer is telling of these events from her own 
watch-tower : 

August 26, 1870. 
Dear Mrs. Swain: 

Always as the fatal 27th of August approaches, my mind 
turns towards you. Every day, at this season of the year, 
renews your desolation, recalling the last hours of a life so 
precious to you. Do you not often feel as if—if you could 
only have one interview with him allowed you, one more oppor- 
tunity to pour out your heart to him, and hear his voice only 
once, you would give him up more cheerfully, and resign your- 
self to your widowhood without a murmur? I do not wonder 
that there is so much said in the Bible about widows and their 
claims upon God’s protection. He who made the human heart 
knows that a widow has endured the deepest sorrow His hand 
can inflict. I think of you sometimes Mrs. Swain, and of 


$92 OLD DAYS IN'CHAPED BILE 


what your married life was, and wonder how you have lived 
the past two years. God alone knows. I was glad to hear 
Mrs. Deems say you were cheerful. I am sure you must have 


enjoyed her visit there, though she said it was all the time 


saddening. 


I suppose you have felt, as we all have, a great pleasure 
over the result of the election. It was indeed delightful to 


me to feel that the days of that party were numbered. Chapel 
Hillians especially were bound to rejoice, you may be sure. 
Poor Miss Nancy Hilliard talks as if she already saw all the 
old faculty reinstated, and three hundred students coming in. 
I doubt if any of the old faculty ever come back, and it will 
be long before prosperity is restored to an institution so de- 
graded. I want the first step toward reform taken by the new 
Legislature, by the reorganization of the University. I want 
this crew turned out. 

Some of the men down the street sent old Wiley Hender- 


son to Martling a few days after the election returns had come 


in, offering to move him and his things, very cheap, to Dur- 
ham. 

Wiley was in earnest to get the job. Martling was furious, 
said he meant to stay a while longer to spite the people of the 
place. They have fifteen students from abroad, and as many 
day scholars. The students board with negroes chiefly. Wilse 
Caldwell has several boarders. John Ashe several, and Sam 
Mahew a few. They say all the boys are quite poor, all being 
free scholars. The common school is set going at last in the 
village. 

I sit sometimes and think of how all this would appear to 
Governor Swain, could he revisit these familiar scenes. I 
fancy him walking these streets. What sighs he would heave, 
from the bottom of his heart, over a place and people so long 
the objects of his care and anxiety. With what charity would 
he speak, with what wisdom and forbearance. I try to imagine 
what he would say, and comfort my mind by it. It seems to 
me as if the chief object and wish of my life were now to 
live to see this place restored in triumph; to see a set of men 
worthy successors to those who are gone, sitting in the old. 


CONTINUED HOSTILITIES 193 


seats—to hear due honor paid to Governor Swain’s memory, 
and justice done to his lifelong services and those of his col- 
leagues; and to be assured that time will never dim nor tar- 
nish his reputation, but will only add to the grateful affection 
with which his native state remembers him. 

This I hope to see. And when the time is come, and with 
tears of joy the people come up to renew and restore these 
beloved seats, then I want you to come up and mingle your 
tears and smiles with ours. I look forward to that joy! 

I am dear Mrs. Swain, with a thousand tender grateful 
remembrances of the past, associated forever with your dear 
and honored husband, 

Yours affectionately with true sympathy, 


Gahas: 


December 31, 1870. 
DeEaR Mrs. SwalIn: 


Since the Episcopal and Presbyterian Churches are quite 
played out in Chapel Hill, I have turned in to help the Metho- 
dists. I am teaching in their Sunday School. I cannot bear 
to be cut off from all associations with my kind, and I like 
the Methodists. 

We are still waiting for something to turn up,—while Mr. 
Pool says the University shall go on, and no power can oust 
him and his faculty. If we get a convention it will be tried. 
Did you see the notice of Brewer’s book in the Sentinel? 

I hear the Martlings are soon to leave for Raleigh, but he 
does not resign, he is still Professor of English, think of that! 


CHAPEL Hitt, December 28, 1870. 
Mr. ABRAM VENABLE, 
GRANVILLE COUNTY. 


My Dear Sir: 


The Angeli that prompts us to do purely benevolent actions 
must surely have been at your side when you penned your letter 
to me. Nothing could have gratified me more, or done me 
more real service; for though in general a merely ‘‘complimen- 


194 OLD DAYS IN GCHAR EL ii 
tary” does not mean much, yet I feel that a letter from Abram 
V enable assuring me of his approbation and friendship is worth 
a good deal, and will stimulate and cheer me as very few letters 
can. 

I write for money to be sure, but no money payment is 
half so dear to me as such a token from one of the old régime. 
Praise from such a quarter is praise indeed. 

I had in this week another such pleasure in a letter from 
Mr. E. J. Hale, now in New York. Your name, my dear sir, 
and his, recall the old days of Whig and Democrat, when you 
were a wheel horse on one side, and he on the other. Utterly 
opposed and unreconcilable in political principles, and now you 
both write very much alike, and say much the same things. 

Your letter, dear Mr. Venable, flushed the tears into my 
eyes, recalling as it did the good days and the good men now 
passed away. Was it not well for my Father and Dr. Mitchell 
and Governor Swain that they fell on sleep in good time, and 
saw none of the melancholy changes of these later years. And 
since you wrote, Bedford Brown has joined them. Your 
friends are indeed getting to be a majority on the other side, 
but while you are waiting to join them it is pleasant to see 
that you do not lose your friendly interest in your surround- 
ings here, especially in the rising generation. 

In no way can you so successfully continue the good in- 
fluence you have exerted all your long and honored life as by 
giving your last counsels and the fruit of your ripe experience 
to the young. Your hint of giving me your views on free 
schools I hope you will not fail to carry out. It is a matter 
on which I require a great deal more light, though as you have 
seen I have been audacious enough to express myself. In the 
course of publication of those articles, Free Schools and Col- 
leges, etc., Governor Graham wrote me that his preference was 
for educating downwards, i.e., build up the University first, 
and the schools afterwards. And Dr. McGuffey says the same, 
and my Brother Charles the same, so that I am possibly in a 
grievous minority. However the veteran Calvin H. Wiley is 
of my persuasion. 


COON TINUED EOS CMUPTIES 195 

Chapel Hill is still trodden down of the Gentiles. That 
miserable farce called the University goes on still. I and my 
mother, now 75 years old, and my little daughter, 11 years, 
are the last of our tribe, the sole remaining members of a once 
pleasant society. In the past two or three years, twenty-one 
of the best families in Chapel Hill have removed from it. I 
hold on, believing we will see better days, and the restoration 
of the University to the affection and confidence of our people. 
The use of the Libraries, which was refused me at first when 
these new-comers took possession, is a great attraction to me. 
Of late there has come a great subsidence on the part of those 
in power, and I am allowed to go up to the University Library 
when I please. 

Books take the place of society.. The Society Libraries have 
been sadly pillaged since Holden’s negro troops first arrived 
and took charge; while the Militia last summer broke in the Phi 
and Di Libraries and helped themselves. 

I wish to remain here till I can see all this changed, reno- 
vated, reconstructed. I want to have that triumph, and see 
Carpet-Bagger and Scalawag return to their own place. 

My mother joins me in cordial salutations for you, and best 
wishes for your health and happiness in the new Year. 

I am Sir, with highest respect and regard, 

Yours affectionately, 
OOR AS. 


After the end of the year 1870, the Board of Trus- 
tees, despairing of making any progress with the recon- 
structed University, and having moreover no money for 
‘farther experiment, closed the doors of the institution a 
second time. 

The faculty were left high and dry, chained to the 
village by poverty. Martling was given a hundred dol- 
lars to enable him to leave the state. Patrick did not get 
away from Chapel Hill till the next summer. Brewer 
remained awhile before he left for the University of 
South Carolina, saying that he meant to be on the ground 


196 OLD DAYS TN \CHAREL HInn 


when the institution should be opened for negroes. 
Mclver was appointed State Superintendent of Public 
Instruction sometime in the fall of 1871. Mr. Pool, 
however, managed to hold on, to wait, later to claim and 
finally to obtain his full salary for all this time. In the 
interval he held some offices which brought him in 
enough money for his needs of the day. 


XV 
THE LEAN YEARS, 1871 TO 1875 


RS. SPENCER’S letters of this year and the two 
following are not preserved in such numbers as 
are the earlier ones. But there is evidence to prove that 
while they are not in the collection, they were sown 
widely all about where they would bring forth fruit for 
_ the reorganization of the University. Credit is given 
to men who came later in time, but Mrs. Spencer sowed 
the seed of interest in education beside all waters, for 
years and years, before North Carolina awoke to her 
obligations toward her young folk. Aycock and Charles 
D. McIver, graduated in early classes after the reopen- 
ing, when students were few, were constantly invited 
to Mrs. Spencer’s home, when her influence was still 
most potent in indirect counsel with the faculty. Prob- 
ably not a boy was disciplined, or a small change initiated 
in policy, in President Kemp Battle’s time, unless Mrs. 
Spencer knew about the very inception of it. 

The sower and the reaper shall rejoice together, and 
no one is filching praise away from Governor Aycock 
and Charles B. McIver to say that what they advocated 
seems to have been formed in their minds by Mrs. Spen- 
cer, and shows the mark of its origin. Indeed McIver 
recognized this, when he named one of the buildings at 
the North Carolina College for Women after the woman 
who had upheld the necessity of women’s higher 
education. Resuming the correspondence: 

CHapet Hitz, March 5, 1871. 
DEAR CHARLES: 

I have finished reading aloud to June, and will conclude 

the evening by beginning a letter to you. 


y ~~? » 
PSST 


Lined li fab 


AN he, 


MRS. JAMES PHILLIPS 


THE LEAN YEARS, 1871-1875 Le 


Ma has your long letter, and is much gratified and inter- 
ested. It seems that our Southern church is in a dead and 
lukewarm state. Ma says it is judgment, or the reaction of the 
sin of our General Assembly in rejecting the offered hand of 
the Northern Church. It grieves me to see the constant ap- 
peals for help from all our Church organizations. McIver says 
the Southern Church has undertaken more than it is able to 
accomplish. 

I have a letter from Mr. Jones, and the report [of the trus- 
tees] has been delayed greatly by Lassiter’s [the Secretary’s] 
absence in Washington City. I should pain you greatly if I 
were to tell you how things are going on here. The college 
property is being depredated to a scandalous extent. Wood is 
being taken off the land by everybody. Patrick is selling it to 
get money to live upon. Negroes are cutting it down. Rails 
for fencing are being made and sold. Wash Davis and sons 
have just fenced in the whole west side of Smith’s lot with 
rails made in the woods behind them. 

Mclver says, if they were to blow off the top of the South 
Building, Pool would not say a word. His Administration’s 
cornerstone was flattery of the boys to their parents, and com- 
plaisance to all concerned. He did not grow one inch after 
he graduated. You know he never could control his classes 
when Tutor. 

Dr. Spencer [her husband’s brother] died without a will, 
I fear, from what his brother writes, with affairs tangled, his 
health having been declining for a year or two—everything 
at loose ends. 

We endeavor still to hope for a Constitutional Convention. 
It seems to be the last chance for Chapel Hill. Brother Sam 
seems to be the bulwark in the Legislature against one. 


CuHapPeL Hitt, September 30, 1871. 
To GOVERNOR VANCE, 


My Drar GovERNOR: 


Last Monday I was favored with a call from Mr. Lassiter, 
Secretary of the Board of Trustees of the defunct University, 
introduced by Professor McIver. His object, he stated, was 


200 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


to request me to suggest some plan for the restoration of the 
University, and to prepare a manuscript for him to submit to 
the Board at their next meeting. I think I may be excused 
for smiling at this turn of affairs. 

I endeavored to feel not unduly elated by the honor thus 
thrust upon me. “A Plan.” 

I told Mr. Lassiter that the only plan occurring to my mind 
was that the present Administration resign unconditionally, 
and call on the Alumni to take charge of the Institution.? 

Mr. Lassiter has few ideas, and a limited horizon bounded 
chiefly by “Our Party.” It was, to say the least, nauseating 
to hear him talk about “party” in connection with this matter. 

He objected to my plan on the ground that the Alumni were 
“all Conservatives” and it would be giving the University 
over into the hands of this “Party.” I suppose he is an honest 
man, and means well according to his lights, which lights 
are few. : 

His favorite word next to “party’ was “co-operation.” 
He wants everybody to co-operate with the present board in a 
generous effort to re-animate and restore the University. I 
said I did not think that would be done. They must abandon 
the whole concern, before anyone else would move. And Mr. 
Mclver rather surprised me by seconding this declaration very 
vehemently and declaring, if he had a million dollars, he would 
not give one, while the present trustees held on, or the present 
administration was retained. 

Professor Patrick is gone, abut, evasit, erumpit between 
two days, his creditors being numerous and desperate. Chapel 
Hill people have had to come to the rescue and send in food 
to the family.? 

An entire breakdown. Mr. Brewer remains. Says he 
means to be on the ground when reorganization takes place. 
He has openly expressed his hope of being able to secure this 


* This plan was followed early in 1872 by Alexander McIver when 
he became State Superintendent of Public Instruction. See later. 

2 Mrs. Spencer herself is said by her niece, Mrs. Lucy Phillips 
Russell of Rockingham, North Carolina, to have been the main person 
of Chapel Hill who fed and helped these people at this time. 


THE LEAN YEARS, 1871-1875 201 


for a negro college. Says the money for this would be forth- 
coming from the North at once. 

He is one of the hottest negro philanthropists! Mr. Pool 
is as usual impenetrable, but busy underground. His latest 
move is to stir up sectarian animosity against the University, 
so that since he failed, no one else shall be allowed to restore it. 

Mr. Mclver is fighting him. I do not know what Mr. 
Mclver will do. He is thoroughly sick of Mr. Pool and the 
rest. I think he is honestly anxious to undo any mischief he 
may have done in coming here. Some think he is playing a 
game to secure himself with the Alumni in case they come into 
power. 

Some time when you have a spare half-hour—and Mrs. 
Vance does not need you; for I do not believe she cooks “all 
by herself” as the children say, though of course she is willing 
to take the credit—some spare half-hour then, between setting 
the table and bringing in the dinner, you would do me a great 
favor if you would say what you do think about the chances for 
the reorganization of the University... . 

I am Dear Governor with much regard, 


ON aS 


A letter to Mrs. Swain, belongs to about this season: 


August 23, 1871. 
My Dear Mrs. Swain: 


The time of the year is full of recollections for me, of the 
Governor and of you, but I must needs dream of you last night. 
I dreamed of you both, all night, and the conclusion of my 
dream was, that your old home was full of servants, cleaning 
and repairing and bringing in furniture; for you and he were 
coming to take possession again, and so when I woke my first 
thought was of writing to Mrs. Swain. This very day I must 
write. 

The failure to get a Constitutional Convention has seemed 
to set all hopes for Chapel Hill further off than ever. 

Dr. Burke Haywood of Raleigh, while here, went early 
one morning to the Campus, and went all over the buildings. 


202 OLD DAY SOM CORDATE Bet: 


He told me a more melancholy walk he never took. Then 
he went into the Chapel and “thinking it a fit place and oppor- 
tunity” kneeled down and thanked God for twenty-four years 
of reasonable prosperity since his graduation. Thanked Him 
for his education here, and his intercourse here with great and 
good men now gone, and prayed for the restoration of his dear 
old college. 

I thought it an affecting picture—the old student kneeling 
alone in that chapel with such feelings and such expression 
of them. 

He was confident of its reorganization, but like all the 
rest, did not say how! An attempt will be made this fall to 
get it turned over to the Alumni. Pool has been writing a series 
of articles in the Methodist and Baptist Church papers, ex- 
ceedingly bitter and odious. His remarks upon Governor 
Swain and the old Faculty are full of malignity and untruth. 
His aim and desire is to stir up sectarian feelings against the 
University, and prevent its revival under any hands. I think 
I never knew such a case as Pool’s. 

I suppose you know that Miss Nancy Hilliard and Mrs. 
Utley have the “Exchange” Hotel in Raleigh. Their place 
here is shut up, and looks forlorn enough. I fear they are too 
old, too infirm, to keep a city hotel. The depletion goes on 
here. The Emerys, Carrs and Barbees are pretty much all 
that are left. Mr. Argo I seldom see. 

The Faculty are still holding on here. The Patricks have 
been about to starve this spring, having literally nothing to eat. 
The Chapel Hill people rushed gallantly to the rescue, and sent 
them meat, flour, sugar, and coffee. Mr. McIver tells me they 
are destitute now again. Pool has got a snug place in the 
southern claims office. He and Jones Watson are getting up 
the claims. 

Fifty thousand dollars are claimed as damages from the 
Federal Army while hereabouts. 

Governor Swain was under the impression that his exer- 
tions saved the village, and General Atkins knows better, and 
could tell a different story about it. Mr. Pool is to get half 
of what he has allowed. 


THE LEAN YEARS, 1871-1875 203 


In January, 1872, McIver, then appointed to office as 
above, fulfilled his promise to Mrs. Spencer by sum- 
moning a meeting of the alumni to consult over the > 
procedure necessary to restore the University. This 
meeting Mrs. Spencer prepared for, by her full and 
earnest letters, and helped to gather together. She 
found it disappointing enough, however. Somewhere 
she says that all women are born anarchists, and law 
breakers; and by this seems to mean that she marvelled, 
as sO many women do, at the intricate rules of the legal 
game men like to play, when women would consider it 
simpler to go straight to the necessary conclusion of the 
affair. 

In 1871, after the University was closed the second 
time, the wheels began turning, very slowly, but surely, 
in the direction of the restoration. At the time of this 
first meeting of the alumni Mrs. Spencer was staying in 
Raleigh. She was making for her great friend, the 
State Geologist, W. C. Kerr, a large map of North Caro- 
lina for him to use in his lectures on the geology of the 
state, at the various colleges: 


RALEIGH, January 30, 1872. 
My Drar CHARLES: 


I am trying to get the map done all I can, but it is hard 
work. I received the Alumni Association Record with your 
letter this morning. I cannot tell you the eagerness with 
which we read your letter. McIver came to arrange with Kerr 
as to the Alumni meeting. I wrote letters to twelve more old 
students begging them to be here, at Mr. Kerr’s insistence. 
I was also requested by some of the Alumni to write editorials 
for the city papers. Mr. Turner has not published what I 
sent him. The others did. I inclose them. ‘“They say’ the 
Carolinian’s is the best one. Mr. Battle says there are hopeful 
indications for a full meeting. The programme is, to meet 
on Thursday morning, have Mr. Bart Moore appointed Presi- 


204 OLD DAYS IN CHAPPED AIC 


dent, appoint a committee to confer with the Trustee’s Com- 
mittee ; these are to be empowered to treat upon the conditions 
of an entire reorganization at Chapel Hill. Neither political 
nor sectarian influences are to be allowed. 

If the Trustees will accede to this, then the committee of 
Alumni will receive further instructions. . . . It is said that 
Pool is busy writing letters to this man and that, to come to his 
help. 

I am writing this with eight or nine gentlemen present, 
over at the State Museum. The map proves attractive. I do not 
think I will get off this week. Ransom sent me his compli- 
ments, and is coming to see me. I have not seen him since 


1847. 


To the same: 
RaeicH, February 2, 1872. 


I went to the Senate Chamber at three o’clock today. Mrs. 
Kerr and Miss Lizzie Kerr, her sister-in-law, and Mrs Scott 
and I were the only ladies. I was resolved to come myself, 
ladies or no ladies. 

Mr. Bartholomew F. Moore, with the Alumnus book be- 
fore him, and about fifty old students were present. Mr. 
‘David Carter was secretary. The Alumni were called, year 
by year. It was a sight that made the tears come very near 
the surface. There were Governor Graham and his boys, Mr. 
Barringer, and Judge Battle and his sons, and the Haywoods, 
and many another familiar face. I am such a goose, that I 
could not feel happy or comfortable at the meeting till I saw 
Brother Sam come in and take his place. He did not come 
early. I fidgetted until he did. Mr. Kerr told me there was 
fifty thousand dollars ready to be pledged to the University, 
to begin with. 

Mr. Barringer rose, and called for the present condition 
of the University. Mr. Mclver got up and answered that there 
was nothing to report, no college but the buildings, no faculty, 
no students, nothing but Mr. Pool. By the way, I was sure 
that worthy would be on hand, with his imperturbable solem- 
nity. Then Governor Tod Caldwell rose and stated the debt. 


ie THE LEAN YEARS, 1871-1875 205 


Then all the lawyers had something to say about that. Finally 
Judge Pearson brought it to a point with a few well chosen 
words. He said it was premature to discuss these topics till 
they knew what jurisdiction would be allowed to them. A com- 
mittee was appointed to confer, and report next day, at three 
o'clock. 
RaveicH, February 3, 1872. 

DEAR CHARLES: 

I came to the Museum today, and found a number of the 
Alumni had called to see Mrs. Spencer. They all told me I 
must be made an honorary member. I told them, that if being 
mad for three years together entitled me to it, I have a right. 
They say many pretty things about my pen and pencil. 

Mr. Barringer was most clever, and went over all the Uni- 
versity matters with me. Mr. Carter came too. His staying 
over to the meeting was the result of my meddling. I begged 
him to do it. 

Mr. Mclver has immortalized himself by his course. Every- 
one praises him. This afternoon will show what can be done. 
It is snowing all the morning, but I will go if Mrs. Kerr will. 
I feel as if I could not stay away. 

They wasted yesterday afternoon discussing the affairs of 
the University when they had no right to do so. They ought 
to have sent out their committee at once. Brother Sam had 
nothing to say. One fact was elicited which I did not know. 
That twelve thousand of the Scrip money was used by the 
old Board to pay the salaries of the faculty in requital of 
giving the Agricultural College the use of the University 
buildings. Now the express condition of the act of Congress 
was that no part of that gift should be used for buildings, and 
yet Governor Swain did so use twelve thousand, and the new 
Board followed suit and used ten thousand for their faculty’s 
salaries. 

Both acts were clearly illegal. Taylor moved to memorial- 
ize the Legislature to pay back that money, or as he had the 
misfortune to say, (Mrs. Kerr said), “Have it repaid back,” 
and this after he had performed prodigies of pronunciation, 


206 OLD DAYS TN CHAPED HILI 


Alumnee instead of Alumni, and “Ag-ree-cul-tu-rahl’’ sev- 
eral tines Wiis 

Miss Nancy Hilliard will have to break up here in Raleigh. 
Her house is going down every way. Mr. Utley gets drunk, 
and the boarders had no fires all day last Sunday, no wood. 
The few she has would leave, but Mr. Utley has borrowed 
money of them, and they stay to eat it out. The table is still 
good. Miss Nancy says herself she must go back at once to 
Chapel Hill. I feel so sorry for the old lady. 


It was in this year of 1872 that Samuel Phillips re- 
ceived an appointment from President Grant as Solicitor 
General of the United States. His removal, at the first 
of the next year, made another great vacancy in Mrs. 
Spencer’s life. Mrs. Phillips found it necessary to take 
a preliminary journey to make house arrangements for 
her large family, before moving to Washington. Mrs. 
Spencer went to Raleigh for several weeks, in February, 
to stay with the children and keep house until the move 
was definitely planned. The account of this visit is un- 
rolled in one of those enormous letters of hers, which in 
this instance gives a cross-section of a family, and of a 
whole past society: 


To June Spencer: 
Ra.eicH, February 28, 1872. 


And what is my precious daughter doing right 
now, when her Mama is sitting before Aunt Fanny’s fire with 
Cornie on one side and John on the other, trying hard to work 
out a sum which their father has sent them to do. My 
thoughts are busy with my dear lonely little girl, who was so 
sweet and good as to accept her lot and not say a word so as to 
add to her mother’s trouble at leaving her behind. 

I know dearest child that you like regular beginnings, so 
I will begin where my note from Durham, yesterday, left me. 
Just as I was writing my last line Mrs. Watson told me 
the train was coming, so I put my note in her hand, and 


THE LEAN YEARS, 1871-1875 207 


Mr. Watson got my ticket and put me on board. I had a dull 
ride to Raleigh. I felt very sleepy and hungry. Mem—Always 
bring something to eat along, in future. Arrived at one 
o'clock. Found a carriage waiting. Conductor was polite, 
this time. Away I went. I did wish you had been along to 
enjoy the pleasant ride in an open carriage through the city. 
Everything looked so bright and cheerful. 

When I got to Uncle Sam’s gate, there was John; he jumped 
up in the carriage to ride to the door, and his first word was 
“Why where is June?’ Before we stopped, here came Aunt 
Fanny, running out. 

Not gone yet you see—not meaning to go until today; 
“Oh you haven’t come without June!’ and even the baby 
said, over and over, “I want to see June.’’ So as I told you it 
would be, I began to feel. as if I had committed a crime, 
before I got into the house. And when I was fairly inside, 
they began at me again about you. Aunt Fanny said it was 
the greatest shame she ever heard of, and she wouldn’t stir 
a step to Washington City, and thereupon she began to cry. 
Cried big tears, and took out her handkerchief, and I had half 
a mind to cry too. And it was all to go over, when the rest 
of them came home from school. I told them I believed they 
did not want me at all, without you. | 

When I went into Aunt Fanny’s room, and saw how much 
there was to get ready, I began to think she would not get 
off in a week. 

There was a woman sewing for dear life on a beautiful 
apron for the baby, whose travelling dress was not even done. 
None of Fanny’s or of her dresses home from the dress- 
makers, none of their clothes home from the wash, Aunt Fan- 
ny’s new black silk not come home from Mrs. Scarlett’s, and to 
crown all, a box from New York with three dresses made there 
and a new cloak not yet arrived by express, and by the way, 
has not come yet. 

As soon as I had had a glass of ale and some ham and bis- 
cuit, I looked for my thimble, and went to work with a will 
as you may guess. 


208 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


The first thing I did was to pleat a flannel skirt and sew 
it on the body, and finish it. Then next to make twelve fine 
button-holes. Next to finish the baby’s travelling dress. Near 
dark, two dresses came in from Mrs. Scarlett’s, a cuivre color- 
ed silk dress with a magnificent train—I inclose you a scrap— 
and a splendid corded black silk with train, and she had also 
a pearl-colored velours trimmed with black Cluny lace. I 
thought it one of the most perfectly handsome dresses I ever 
saw in my life. The cuivre colored one, which was trimmed 
with Spanish lace the same color, fit exquisitely, but the black 
was not perfect; so Aunt Fanny and John went right off to 
Mrs. Scarlett’s and fortunately caught her, just as she was 
going out for the evening. Aunt Fanny did not get back till 
nearly nine. Three lovely dresses came home for the baby. 
I send you scraps. The blue one trimmed with blue silk, the 
white alpaca trimmed with cherry velvet, the crimson satin 
trimmed with black velvet. White velours and merino 
cloak, and the loveliest little white merino hood from Stewart’s. 
Baby’s travelling dress was scarlet merino waterproof cloak, 
the ‘cutest little turn-out you ever saw, and a white hood Miss 
Sally Williams has crocheted for her. She did look darling! 
And such quantities of exquisite fine drawers and petticoats and 
tiny boots! After supper Aunt Fanny showed me some things 
she had bought from Stewart’s. The boxes the things were 
in were all so beautiful. One box, filled with embroidered and 
lace handkerchiefs, all different. There were a dozen, besides 
any number of plain hemstitched borders. I can’t imagine what 
they cost. One box filled with collars and sleeves, in sets, 
point lace, and embroidery. Another full of gloves. Then 
all her chemises and petticoats and gowns, all embroidered, and 
tucked and flounced, I was going to say like a bride’s trous- 
seau, but I never saw a bride with such clothes. The cloak 
she expected from New York was to be embroidered cashmere, 
and then three dresses which Cousin M— has had made there 
for her. She has never seen these of course, but one was to 
be a morning dress. Altogether, Iam sure your Aunt Fanny’s 
outfit cannot come far short of a thousand dollars. 


THE LEAN YEARS, 1871-1875 209 


When I came into her room this morning it was after 
eight o’clock. Train left at ten. The black silk had not come 
home. The clothes from the laundress had not come. The 
woman was still sewing for dear life on the Baby’s white 
velours cloak, and not one thing had been put into the trunk. I 
did not begin to think that she could get off. Uncle Sam tele- 
graphed at nine last night to know if she was to start podey as 
he wished to meet her in Richmond. 

Aunt Fanny had a great mind to say she would not come 
because her box from New York had not come; she said she 
would not go without that. I advised her to go, and said'we 
would send the box straight on to her in Washington, and that 
it would be wrong to disappoint Uncle Sam. So she sent him 
word she would leave today, and I felt pretty badly this morn- 
ing, thinking she could never get off, and there Sam would be 
in Richmond. Wonderful to relate, She Got Off. At nine 
o'clock the things began to come in. Margaret Walker and I 
filled up the trunk in a very few minutes. After the baggage 
wagon had come Aunt Fanny was still in her old wrapper, 
while her new boots, which had the tops cut down to fit her 
ankles, had not been bound. But she was dressed in time, 
nevertheless, in a black silk skirt, trimmed with velvet, olive 
green polonaise, very handsome cloth cloak, and high black 
straw hat trimmed with black. She looked very handsome, 
and dear little Baby looked like a pink. 

After the omnibus was at the door I had to fix the lunch 
basket. In the midst of all this hurry-skurry, everybody 
on the lot and about twenty people off it busy doing some- 
thing for her, Aunt Fanny was so quiet, and as serene and delib- 
erate as if she did not have to leave in a month. Her brother 
came to take her to the train, and ate breakfast with us. John 
went too of course, and said they got there in good time. 

After Aunt Fanny got off, M— cried heartily, she was 
the only one. The others wanted their mama to go. Not to 
get rid of her, you know, but because they thought it would 
be so nice for her. I told her to dismiss all care from her mind, 
and think she was on her bridal trip. 


210 OLDIDAYSUIN CHAPPED (ih 

When she said last night that she would not go without 
her box from New York, John was outdone. He got red in 
the face, and he said she must go. “Mama ’th got frockth 
enough,” he said. 

Uncle Sam has written Cornie such a birthday letter. O 
so good, so tender, so full of sweetest counsel! But I am sure 
she thinks a great deal more of one just received from her 
cousin. She sits and kisses her Cousin’s. I have half a mind 
to get up and slap her, what do you think? Last night, Aunt 
F. produced a bundle which she said Cornie had brought me 
from Davidson. 

And Cornie never said a word to me about it. I did not 
know what Aunt Laura meant by “the brown dress’ she had 
sent you. Here it is. Cornie had it in her trunk all the time 
I was here, after she got home, and said not a word about it. 
I could have made it up for you, and it would have been so 
useful to you this winter! . . 

Well! Uncle Sam sent the children each one, a dollar, and 
besides he sent three dollars which was to be divided among 
them, according to their ages. They were to do the sum, and 
say how much each is to get. And the one who does the sum 
first is to have fifty cents more, over and above all the rest. 
Cornie nor E— can no more do the sum, or even guess what 
proportion of the three dollars each is to have, than the baby 
ean. I thought Cornie at least could, but she will not even try. 
John is trying hard. They are not to be assisted, but I have 
given John a hint to start him, because he is so honestly and 
seriously trying. 

Can you tell what each will get? I think John will do it. 
Uncle Sam wrote that he knew June could do it. He thinks 
you are here with me. He said he was sure you would be 
sweet and good while Aunt Fanny was away, and hoped all 
the rest would be. 

E— took her dollar this morning and went off and spent 
it all directly, of course. She bought two very pretty hair- 
ribbons and some candy, and has given all the candy away, by 
this time. M-— spent ten cents in candy, and so did her younger 
sister. Little James bought him a tin horn. Cornie invested 


THE LEAN YEARS, 1871-1875 aut 


in ground-peas, and has been eating them all day. She gave 
John four, gave me six, and gave E— one. You ought to 
hear them all laugh about that. John has not yet decided what 
he will do with his money. He comes up, and says, “All that 
letter to June?” I say, “Yes, I am giving her an account of 
my travels.’’ My dear good and sensible little girl! I shall 
never forget how good she was the last night that I was at 
home, nor how she comforted her mother’s heart. 


P.S.—John has got the sum. His share of the three 
dollars is sixty-five and five-eights cents. 


Although Mrs. Spencer did not agree with Sam in 
his political principles, she loved him devotedly, and with 
admiration. She acknowledges in the midst of her regret: 


Brother Sam lived a much larger life in Washington City 
than he ever could have done in North Carolina. He saw more, 
learned more, enjoyed more, and had an infinitely greater op- 
portunity for doing good, helping other people and enlarging 
his own heart, than North Carolina could ever have given him. 
That he could help others was always his keenest enjoyment. 


Just before her death she inscribed the following in 
her journal: 


July 30, 1907—Whenever my mind receives fresh impulse 
from some written word of the masters, or a fresh view of 
faith or love, it turns to my Brother Sam, as having been my 
friend and guide in all good thoughts and aspirations. He 
never spoke at length. His words were few and well chosen, 
and his manner was impressive and weighty. 


The subject of the reopening of the University suf- 
fers an eclipse after this for a little while. In 1873 the 
machinery was perfected which was going to permit it 
to open in 1875. But the waiting must have been the 
sickening suspense of hope deferred. However, there 
were still those who needed Mrs. Spencer in Chapel Hill. 


ae OLD DAYS VIN CHAP EI Hitt: 


In November of 1872 she writes Laura about many 
things: | 
DeEaAR LAURA: 


Mrs. Thompson asked me last night if I did not think 
poor Ed Martin had joined our departed friends in Heaven? 
And if he had, would they know each other? And if they 
recognized him would they not ask him of us? and if they 
did ask him, could I not imagine him saying to Pa, “Mrs. 
Spencer’s face was one of the last I looked upon. She was 
standing before me at the foot of my bed, when I died.’”’ And 
would not Mr. Spencer ask him about June? And would he 
not rejoice to tell him how often June came to see him, carry- 
ing things to him? She said, do you think such things incon- 
sistent with Heaven? I cannot say what I think. How near 
is the next world to us! ... 

Mrs. Carr came a-calling just now. She has a new black 
silk, and her son Julian has sent her a good sum of money to 
buy her a velvet cloak. ; 

Miss Nancy Hilliard is even worse off, in more melan- 
choly circumstances than ever. I do not suppose she has ten 
dollars in the whole world. I intend to ask Brother Sam if he 
thinks an appeal to some of Miss Nancy’s old boarders would 
result in their making up a fund for her. I wish something 
could be suggested and done. Thanksgiving Day I shared 
my provisions with seven persons outside our family. I see 
no prospect before some of our poor neighbors here but to 
go to the poor house. There are too few left to help them. 
What is to become of them? 

Mrs. Loader came to take a farewell tea with me, before 
leaving next week. Sitting knitting very cosily, she leaned 
too far back and suddenly turned the neatest summersault you 
ever saw. I helped her up very demurely, and then I went 
out into the passage and laughed almost hysterically, till I was 
right weak! With which sprightly anecdote of high life, I 
will now conclude my letter. . 


She found out what to do for the needy neighbors, 
for she wrote to many who had lived in Chapel Hill, and 


THE LEAN YEARS, 1871-1875 Zie 


especially those who had been treated generously in the 
past by Miss Nancy Hilliard, who had fed more boys, 
given more poor boys credit, done more work and earned 
more money than any woman in North Carolina. 

Among Mrs. Spencer’s papers there is a neat account 
book in which she has accounted to herself for the dis- 
posal of funds, running into hundreds of dollars, which 
she gathered and expended for the needs of her poor 
neighbors. It is all set down, receipts and disbursements. 
A load of wood to this one, money to that one, food to 
another. As her mother wrote of her, “There would not 
be a want, or a misery in the whole world, if my dear 
Cornelia could only help everybody.” 


December 31, 1872. 
Dear Mrs. SwalIn: 


People in Chapel Hill are poorer all the time. Mrs. 
Mickle was just saying that she saw no prospect before some 
of her poor neighbors but the poor house. There are very 
few families left to assist the poor, as formerly ; and some who 
in old times did not think of asking help, are fast sinking into 
the condition of paupers. Would you ever have thought of 
Miss Nancy Hilliard as an object of charity, and yet I fear 
she is. They returned from Raleigh, much poorer than they 
left here, for they once had a good houseful of nice furniture, 
and they left all that behind them. Their experiment ended 
in disastrous failure. Dr. Burke Haywood gave Miss Nancy 
twenty-five dollars, and told her to come back here while she 
could—so they came, and Mr. Pool refused to let her go into 
her old house. They were without shelter, till Long & Mc- 
Cauley, who own the old Hotel, told them to go there and stay 
as long as they chose. So they are living there, in one room. 
They have two beds, and some china, and a table and a chair 
or two. Nothing else in the world! Mrs. Utley is grown 
imbecile, and is quite helpless, and Miss Nancy has hardly a 
trace of her old witty vivacity. The Carrs and the Barbees 
are very kind to them. 


OLD SOUTH BUILDING AND THE WELL 


THE LEAN YEARS, 1871-1875. 215 


I think I do Mr. Pool no injustice in saying that he would 
much prefer to see every building belonging to the University 
burned down, to having his place taken from him. He and 
Mason are superintendents of the University property. They 
will not do anything toward protecting the buildings. I think 
they invite their destruction. Gangs of negroes spend the 
nights in the Old South Building, rioting, shouting, drinking. 
You have no idea of the degradation. The Halls and Libraries 
are broken into at all times, and I am told that the Phi Library, 
which is especially in Mr. Pool’s hands, has its books scattered 
all over the building. It makes me heartsick to write about it. 

I stand at my window late in the night sometimes looking 
that way, expecting to see it all on fire. 

The Brewers and the MclIvers still live in their respective 
houses. Colonel Guthrie and his wife live in Miss Nancy’s 
house, put there by Pool to keep Miss Nancy out. Neither 
the Episcopal nor the Presbyterian Churches have been opened 
in a year. 

Lizzie Mickle still lives, a great sufferer. She cannot walk, 
cannot lie, sits in her chair all day, and all night. Mr. 
Mickle is a clerk in Raleigh. They are always cheerful—about 
my only resource for company now. I take it for granted this 
is all as interesting to you as it is to me. 

Old Dr. November lies on his death bed. He has made a 
profession of ‘religion. He told me all about it. He said, 
“Miss Cornelia, I liked to have been too late!’ His principal 
pleasure is having some old friend sit and talk about old 
times. He says he knows he will see all the old faculty sitting 
up there in Heaven. He means to look for ’em! 

Mr. Hogan died last week. His wife and six children in 
the depths of poverty, and the old father refuses to help them. 
He refused to go to his son’s funeral. Oh do let me stop this 
chronicle of sorrow and suffering! You will feel as if you had 
been reading the book of Lamentations. My household is in 
good health. Ma is quite cheerful. June grows up apace, but 
is still fond of dolls and cats. 

Yours most affectionately, 


OAH (tt 


XV 
THE UNIVERSITY BELL RINGS AGAIN 


O SEE a humanly-contrived establishment that you 
love, die before your eyes, whether it be a palace or 
simply a farm-home that sheltered your family, is surely 
a pitiful experience. Indeed, much of the subject matter 
of these papers is more than pathetic. Mrs. Spencer had 
assisted at the long-drawn out obsequies of this thing 
that she loved best, and she remained face to face with 
its corpse, still unburied. A college left deserted, as was 
this one, is the most disheartening of all such sights, 
because of the association it has with eager vivid youth, 
crowding generations of students, which it should be sug- 
gesting, when it is void and solitary. 

The letters of 1873 and 1874 hold merely chronicles 
of small happenings. There occur some graceful verses, 
some rhymed epistles, written to please June, as from 
her favorite pussies, a riddle or two in rhyme,—such 
things as would while away one of those winter evenings 
which must have been long and heavy-going to a person 
like Mrs. Spencer, who loved to give portions to many 
when friendship was being shared. Resolutely cheer- 
ful, she could not help feeling the loneliness creep cold 
into her heart, as time passed and her hopes were delayed. 
By September, 1873, she writes that “Miss Nancy is fail- 
ing. She begins to fear that she will never get well 
again. “Do you think I will?’ she says, looking at you so 
piteously.”’ 


CHAPEL Hitt, November 12, 1873. 
DEAR CHARLES: 


As you probably have learned by this time, our old friend 
and neighbor Miss Nancy Hilliard was released from her long 


UNIVERSITY BELL RINGS AGAIN — 217 


sufferings last Saturday morning at daylight. She had been 
entirely unconscious for thirty-six hours and died quite easily. 

Her sufferings have been very great, let us hope she has 
entered upon rest. She was laid out in what she used to call 
the dark room of the old Hotel, next to what was for many 
years her bed-room. Her face assumed a very sweet peaceful 
expression. The funeral was held that afternoon, the condi- 
tion of the poor body forbidding further delay. No minister 
in town, and no religious service or observances unless you 
call such the tolling of our church bell. Just as this began, 
and the little procession moved from the door, the University 
bell joined in. It was very affecting, and brought tears to my 
eyes. No one knew who was paying the tribute, but we heard 
afterwards it was John Mallett. He said he thought it ought 
to be done, and indeed it did seem very suitable and right. 

Very few persons were out, about twenty-five. She was 
buried beside her mother, who died in 1823, near the Phi en- 
closure, on the east side. 

The small sum subscribed for her by Miss Nancy’s old 
boarders is nearly gone. What is to become of old Mr. and 
Mrs. Utley? It was pitiful to see poor old deaf-mute Lem 
Yancey following Miss Nancy to her grave with his head 
bent down. Worthless as he was, as long as she had a biscuit 
she divided it with him. 

Sam has written twice this week; he inclosed ten dollars 
in his last letter “for Miss Nancy’s use.” I longed to give it to 
Mrs. Utley but must write him for further instructions, Miss 
Nancy being dead. 


January 9, 1874. 
My Dear JUNE: 


At Sunday School, I heard that poor Sally Hearne was 
dying. I resolved to go tomorrow, and take her something. 
When I got home, here was a good fire, and a hot cup of tea 
for me waiting on the hearth, and after I had drunk the tea, 
I began to think of that poor pretty girl, and what if it had 
been my girl, instead. 


*Son of a physician who had lived in Chapel Hill and still re- 
tained property there. He probably happened to be in the village. 


218 OULD DAY SVIN CHAE BE ae 


I felt that I must do something right away. So I put on 
my things and gathered up something to take and set off. 
It was bitter cold. Mrs. McIver joined me at her gate, and 
I told her of the poor child. It is typhoid pneumonia, insuff- 
cient clothing and insufficient food. They live in the upstairs 
of the house, another family in the downstairs part. We went 
up, and the girl is very low, her recovery doubtful. Poor 
child, they say she calls her father all the while. So young, so 
pretty. 


January 10—Poor Sally Hearne is no better. I went up 
and saw her. The room was so close it made me sick. I told 
Mrs. Hearne they would all have typhoid if she did not let 
fresh air in. I opened one of the windows. Poor Sally lay 
insensible with her pretty brown eyes closed. I grieve for her, 
and yet it may be a great mercy, that God is taking her out of 
this troublesome world where her prospects for comfort or 
happiness are so slender. 

Uncle Charles sent me ten dollars for old Couch, and when 
he came to get his money he was the most wretched looking 
object you ever saw. I told him to wash his face and make 
himself look like a white man, that no woman in the country 
would marry him if he went about like that. You ought to 
have seen the smile in his old bleared eyes. 


January 14—This is the thirtieth letter I have written this 
year. I have four more that ought to be written. Uncle 
Charles writes me that there is good hope that the University 
may soon be reorganized. I felt so happy and lifted up, after 
reading that, for two days, that I did not notice the weather. 
The sleet seemed all sunshine. 


The following letter is to Judge W. H. Battle: 


January 24, 1874. 
JupcE Battie, Raveieu, N. C. 
DEAR SIR: 


I am in some respects like the importunate widow in scrip- 
ture. I keep coming to the Judge. However there the parallel 
ends. My judge is in no respect like hers. 


Re 


UNIVE RST EY BREE RINGS AGATN (219 


About Uncle Ben and Aunt Dilsey, (I am all the time being 
employed for other folks, it seems to me), Brother Charles 
writes that if tenants who will pay rent want the Fetter place, 
they must be allowed to take it in preference to any other. 
But that Uncle Ben and Dilsey may be still permitted to live 
in one of the kitchens. 

This plan is not a brilliant one for several reasons. First, 
no white tenant would want an independent colored family 
on the lot. Second, Ben would not live on such terms with any 
family. Third, there is but one kitchen which is habitable. 

Nat King tells me he wants to rent the land, and can make 
it pay a rent of $35.00 a year. He is a hard working man 
and has two stout sons, and will make the land pay better 
than anyone else. 

Jim Watson wants the house, and part of the garden. 
I doubt if he can pay any rent at all. His habits are not 
good. The worst of letting such houses to such white tenants 
is that they do all their work in there, besides all the tobacco 
chewing and spitting. 

Cooking in a dining room is no advantage to the flooring, 
nor is the practise of spitting against walls and chair boards 
good for the appearance of things. My proposal would be, 
let King have the land and let Uncle Ben have the kitchen, and 
‘part of the garden, rent free on condition of keeping things up. 
You might say at one dollar a month. There is some fruit 
on the place. He could pay one dollar a month for his share 
of garden and fruit. 

April 24, 1874. 
_ My Dear Mrs. Lacy? 


I hope the lectures on gossip in the Presbyterian helped 
the cause at Peace Institute a little. The young ladies up here 
professed to be delighted, but one had the sass to send me word 
she had a heap of nice little bits of neighborhood news she had 
been saving up to tell me, but now I should not hear a bit! 

We still have a tiny white Sunday School here, and a 
good large colored one, and a sewing circle of little girls 


2Mrs. Drury Lacy, wife of a well known Presbyterian minister of 
Raleigh. 


220 OLD) DAYSITN CHAP RE ATICL 


who are trying to make something for Foreign Missions, in 
time for the May Collection. My June is the oldest girl in the 
Society. The youngest one is six, and she can thread needles 
for the President whose eyes are not so good as they have been. 
I want to send a small box of our little works to you to Peace 
Institute, in hopes that the girls, understanding where they 
come from, may buy ’em. 

There are pretty little pin-cushions, emeries, ruffs, cushions, 
etc., such as school girls would be likely to fancy. . . . There 
will not be more than five or ten dollars worth, and the little 
girls have worked so lovingly for the church which most of 
them know by name only, for we have not had a service since 
last September, and only two services in two year’s time. . . 
With love for all Peaceful people, Yours affectionately, 


COP So: 


At the risk of reiterating too often the saying that it 
was an almost extinct society that lingered in the fast 
crumbling habitations of Chapel Hill, there might be 
quoted, from her niece’s telling, the story of the death of 
“Old Couch,” the town drunkard: 


He had fallen, through drink, to a condition lower than 
the brutes. At last, a negro, passing his little house by the 
roadside, a miserable hovel, brought Mrs. Spencer word that, 
“Old Couch was a-dyin’.”’ 

Laying aside her work, she armed herself with food and 
clothing, called me, and together we entered his hut. There 
on a pile of leaves and rags lay what was once a man, burning 
with fever. 

Sending to a near-by cabin for a basin of warm water, 
and kneeling on the broken floor, Mrs. Spencer with her own 
hands began to bathe his face and throat. Looking up at me 
after a few minutes of hard work, she exclaimed, “Why 
Lucy, he’s got blue eyes!” 

She cut away his filthy rags, clothed him decently, fed him 
with broth, had a bed brought in with clean coverings, and 
when the poor outcast breathed his last it was in the guise of 
a man, and not like a beast. 


UNIVERSITY BELL RINGS AGAIN 221 


January, 1875, finds June Spencer at. school in Ral- 
eigh, at Peace Institute. Letters begin to come thick, 
written to her like any mother’s to any daughter, about 
clothes, and studies, and girlish doings and needs. Mrs. 
Spencer’s increasing deafness reconciled her to solitude. 
She became accustomed to her still grey life, she sat 
alone, or with only a very old lady and a cat for com- 
panions, and outside the house always the moribund vil- 
lage to look at. But the long lane is about to turn. 

On March 10, 1875, Mrs. Spencer writes to June in 
Raleigh: “The trustees of the University are having 
their meeting in Raleigh today. What they will do, can 
do, no one knows.” But this time they got hold of the 
right end of their money tangle. The judge, before 
whom the litigation came, instructed the lawyer to con- 
strue the decree about the University liberally ;* and so 


* The bill for reopening the University of North Carolina pledged 
the state to pay toward the maintainance of the University legal inter- 
est upon $125,000, this sum remaining of the Land Scrip money which 
had been obtained by Governor Swain under the Morrill Act as 
North Carolina’s allotment. This sum, $125,000, had been turned over 
to the treasurer of Governor Holden’s Board of Trustees, and had 
been invested by him in “Special Tax” railroad bonds which were now 
repudiated by a conservative General Assembly. The state, however, 
was still responsible to the United States Government for the prin- 
cipal; and by the majority of only one they voted to pay interest on 
this debt to be given to the University, thus making re-opening pos- 
sible. The Supreme Court of the United States, opinion by Chief Jus- 
tice Waite, decided that no part of the equipment of a state educa- 
tional institution could be sold for debt,—thus preserving the plant, 
the buildings, campus, libraries, furniture, and faculty houses from 
being sold. A debt owed by the University to the defunct State Bank 
was at this time declared valid, but was afterwards reduced to Z5 cents 
on the dollar. Twenty thousand dollars had now been pledged by the 
alumni towards repair and re-opening. Very little else, besides pos- 
sible future tuition fees, was in sight. The State Bank pressed for 
the debt owing to it, and Mr. William B. Snow, an attorney of Raleigh, 
was appointed Commissioner to report as to what property should be 
exempt. Mr. Snow consulted Judge Bond, of the United States Court, 
in regard to his report. Judge Bond said, “Be liberal. It is the Uni- 
versity, for the education of the young,” so six hundred acres beside, 
of adjoining land, was set aside as added to the exempt property. The 


PANE OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


the decision of this whole question was to come finally 
from the General Assembly. The last of the old Pen 
and Ink Sketches of the Umwversity had closed with the 
words: 

To the Alumni must the University look for her restora- 
tion. To the Alumni have I addressed these desultory papers, 
in the hope of kindling their attachment, and awakening 
their interest. 


To the alumni and their influence, constantly rallied 
as it had been by Mrs. Spencer, and no other, to the sup- 
port of the old Institution, was due the long fight, and 
final passage of the bill for the financial reorganization 
and support of the University, a bill which passed its 
first reading by only one vote, but which was adopted 
unanimously on its second and third readings. March 
20, 1875, was Mrs. Spencer’s fiftieth birthday. It was 
on that day that the news was telegraphed to her, a few 
minutes after the bill was safe. She called her few young 
girls, her scholars, her neighbors’ children, and with 
them mounted the stairs to the belfry. It was no funeral 
peal which waked the echoes when for half an hour she 
told the hills and trees, and the few living souls left 
within the joyful sound, that the days of silence and 
defeat were over. 

Grandmother Phillips is writing a little later to June. 
She tells her of all the news that is budding with the 
spring: 

The faculty houses are to be put in complete order as soon 


as possible, a herculean task, when outbuildings and fences 
have mostly been destroyed, and floors and partitions ripped 


remaining University land, when offered for sale to pay the debt to 
the bank, was bought in by Mr. Paul Cameron of Hillsborough, North 
Carolina, one of the new Board of Trustees, and a life-long friend and 
benefactor of the University. 


VERS TTY BRUT ORINGS AGATN (223 


out for fire-wood. You must come home to take care of your 
dear generous mother, for she is pressed into service by public 
as well as private imposition. Last week we had five gentlemen 
here, some of them for all night. Many strangers are coming 
to Chapel Hill. 

Our quiet times will all be changed. Dear old Chapel Hill 
has suffered enough to appreciate prosperity. Everyone is 
repairing their front fences. 


As Mrs. Spencer expressed it in one of her sketches: 


I have given the entire first act of the drama, that there 
should be a farce interlude seems consistent, but the curtain 
will rise again, on fairer scenes, new actors, and a prouder 
story for Chapel Hill, as no one who loves North Carolina is 
willing to doubt. 


Writing in the year 1900, she says: 


How all that storm and stress has passed—passed away as 
a cloud passes after a thunder storm, leaving the sky clear 
and the birds singing again. I have survived nearly all the 
actors and sufferers of that day. Looking back, coolly and dis- 
passionately, at those men and their measures, there seems 
ground for disapproval still, and for contempt! Thanksgiving 
that they were so triumphantly defeated. Rev. Sol Pool, so 
often mentioned in my letters to his disadvantage, died in 
Greensboro’, North Carolina, this past April—an invalid for 
several years—-from a paralytic stroke. What a miserable 
story his so called Presidency of the University of North 
Carolina. 


In June, 1875, Mrs. Spencer is writing to urge her 
brother Charles, who has been “recalled to the Univer- 
sity from Davidson College, to resume the Chair of 
Mathematics,” to accept the call: 

It is time for you to be making up your mind about return- 
ing to Chapel Hill. It is a sort of duty. You ought to return. 


But when I sit down and think about it all, I feel down in the 
mouth. I want to feel all glorious, and I cannot! 


224 OLD DAYS IN CHAT E Dnt 


Mr. Pool offers his house for sale and wishes to move 
away—is going to deliver lectures, on what subject I do not 
know. Has invented a calculating machine and got a patent 
for it. Has just returned from a trip North, to Boston, etc. 
Has seven sons, and I should think would want to get out of 
Chapel Hill with ’em. 


It is clear that Mrs. Spencer never could live in love 
and charity with Mr. Pool. A little further along in this 
letter, she calls him an ““Edomite’’ and he is thus dis- 
missed from her mind and her writings. 


Cuapre, Hii, May 26, 1875. 
DEAR JUNE: 

Kemp Battle and John Manning and Mr. Cameron were all 
here last week when the trustees met. Kemp stayed with me. 
Mr. Manning and his boy came after tea, and he and Kemp 
and Mr. Dalton, and Mr. McIver, who stuck to the trustees like 
a tick, sat on the piazza and agreed there were nowhere such 
trees, such moonlight, such air as here in Chapel Hill. 

It was delightful to hear those old students talk. There 
seemed to be a constant disposition among them to be shaking 
hands, all the time. I hear there is to be some racing as to 
whose boy will be first on the ground. Since Governor Graham 
cannot take the Presidency, has Kemp Battle the least notion of 
that placer 

I should think not. J am astonished that anyone should 
think he would want to come here. It would be like the olive, 
leaving its fatness to become king. 


All that summer the carpenters, under the surveil- 
lance of Mr. Paul Cameron, of Hillsborough, a most de- 
voted trustee, were repairing roofs and making the place 
habitable after the years of disuse. In September the 
opening took place. Mrs. Spencer decorated the Chapel 
for this occasion, using wreaths of evergreen, the por- 
traits of the old worthies, and a great motto in evergreen 
letters, her own motto, Laus Deo. The students were 


UNIVERSITY BELL RINGS AGAIN = 225 


fifty-nine in number, who gathered in to the reopened 
institution. 

While the world outside had been forging ahead for 
the last decade, North Carolina had retrograded in every 
way. Money was scarce, and enthusiasm dead. It was 
a small beginning-again, and not a restoration that was 
taking place. There must be years of work, before the 
level was reached of the days just before the Civil War. 
The endowment was gone, and the legislature was in a 
most penurious mood regarding the new expense need- 
ful. The denominational colleges were not pleased to 
have an old superior come back as a competitor. They 
knew how to make this react on the appropriations for 
a good many years to come. The old men would feel 
more like weeping than joy, like the older priests in 
Ezra’s time who had seen the first temple; there was not 
much to bring elation in the reopening, hopeful as it was. 
Sons of many men of distinction were among that first 
band of students. Among them was one of Governor 
Vance’s sons. No President was elected this first tenta- 
tive year. Mr. W. J. Peele, one of that first class, de- 
scribes the look of things as he first saw them: 

On my arrival at Chapel Hill I noticed that there was a 
subdued silence throughout the grounds. A few lonely looking 
students could be seen going in and out of the old buildings, 
selecting their rooms, which were now musty from disuse. 
Occasionally might be seen relics and reminders of old student 
life. 

I saw, written in chalk in one of the old recitation rooms, 
a memorandum of the brief and disastrous attempt to continue 
the University after the death of Governor Swain, by those 
unfamiliar with its traditions. It read, ‘This old University 


has busted and gone to hell today,” and then the writer fixed 
the day and date of the catastrophe. 


226 OLD DAYSIIN'GHAPED HITE 


A new start always brings a number of those who 
need, as the boys put it, to “back up a length and start 
again.” And this first class had some unruly members, 
who lost no time in getting insubordinate. One of these 
was Governor Vance’s own son. Mrs. Spencer plead for 
him but she could not help the course of justice. Follow- 
ing this in a day or two, Mrs. Spencer received a long 
letter from Kemp Battle, then Secretary of the Trustees, 
on the subject of clemency to these boys. He was like 
Governor Swain in working through honor and trust to 
control the students by means of their self control. When - 
this same year he was chosen President he knew how to 
steer the craft without touching any one’s prejudices, or 
self will, and was a conciliator. He had a great mission, 
and fulfilled it by reason of his nature and training. All 
through this political turmoil he is said to have been a 
man whom all parties trusted as being honest and fair. 
After he came to the University, he continued his course 
of disarming and conciliating, and he was needed for 
that very quality. A fighter would have embroiled the 
feeble institution with interests at enmity with it, and 
would have very likely wrecked it 1n the very inception. 

Charles Phillips came back to his old home, and so 
did two more of the old faculty, Professors Hooper and 
Kimberly, and so there were some familiar faces in 
Chapel Hill. Mrs. Spencer is writing all about it to 
Mrs. Swain, who is in Illinois with her daughter Ellie. 
This is in the summer of 1876: 

Brother Charles does not like living in the Swain 
home, he says his memories oppress him dreadfully. 

But I have lived to see another Commencement—have 


lived to see the Chapel crowded once more, and seven hundred 
and fifty fans in motion at once—have seen the Campus 


UNIVERSITY BELL RINGS AGAIN | 227 


thronged, and the procession marching, “what time the sound 
of all kinds of music.”’ 

But we were disappointed in two of our speakers. Pro- 
fessor Kerr, who was to speak about Scientific Agriculture, 
was appointed one of the Centennial judges. He had to go to 
Philadelphia last week, and throw us over. Governor Vance, 
who was to have delivered an eulogy on Governor Swain, 
threw it up, because his son David was dismissed from the 
University this spring in company with four other boys, for 
insubordination. Vance could not get over it. I was disap- 
pointed in him that he showed so little self-control. Of course 
it was mortifying, but he ought to be used by now to having 
David dismissed from school. It was the fourth time he has 
been sent home in disgrace, and to throw up such an engage- 
ment and disappoint everybody who was hoping to hear justice 
done to Governor Swain by one who knew him well, and owed 
so much to him! Well! I wouldn’t have thought it of Vance! 
The worst of it was, that he never sent any word to the trustees 
till just a week before Commencement. He wrote me as soon as 
David got home, but as he sent no formal notification to the 
authorities, I supposed he had got over his pet. If he had let 
them know about it at once, they would have invited Brother 
Sam, who was the man who should have done it any way, in the 
first place. 

The company did not begin to come in great numbers till 
Tuesday, when Nellie Battle led the train driving into town 
in an open carriage with Mr. Duncan Cameron. Next came 
another carriage with Judge Battle, and several young ladies. 
Next came Watson’s hack with June, and Alice Kerr, and her 
brother, Will. This was the happiest group of all, for me. 

Then a long line of carriages and vehicles of every sort, and 
then the Salisbury band, resplendent, with six horses, came in, 
just a-playing! Did I not wish I was a little darkey just then, 
so that I could run along the side-walk and screech! 

Commencement is Commencement. No time is like it. I 
will send you a newspaper about it as soon as I can get hold 
of one, and proceed to tell you such items as do not get into 
the papers. 


228 OLD (DAYS IN CHAPEE HITE 


Nellie Battle was the belle of course, but Mary Loder came 
from Raleigh too. Danced at the ball till morning. Mary 
Loder! I wonder what modern Methodism is coming to! 
When I was young, Methodists could not even wear artificial 
flowers ! 

Brother Charles was not well enough to be out. He has 
been in a very bad condition for several months past, and has 
not been able to do anything in college for six weeks. He has 
improved so far as to be sitting about the house a little, and 
can enjoy seeing his friends. 


A little later, Kemp Battle writes at length to Mrs. 
Spencer, to ask her opinion of his being President of the ~ 
University. Then after he is chosen, he writes: 


I have long been trying to engineer Dr. Charles Phillips 
into the Presidency, but his illness has thwarted me. When 
the trustees decided that I was the ‘“‘best man under the cir- 
cumstances” I did not refuse. I have had opportunities. 

I have been student, tutor, trustee, before and after, Secre- 
tary of the Board, lawyer, politician, member of the Consti- 
tutional Convention, president of a railroad, banker, lobbyist, 
planter. These have trained me for the grandest of all trades 
perhaps. Time only will show. If I succeed it will be a crown 
of honor. 

You will help me I know, you will always talk to me can- 
didly and fully. Dr. Phillips will work with me as cordially 
as any one could. 

I do not feel so burdened with you to help me, as I other- 
wise would, but my thoughts of the future are very solemn. 


For this first Commencement Mrs. Spencer wrote a 
hymn, which follows: 


CLosinc Hymn, For UNIVERSITY COMMENCEMENT 
oF 1876 


Eternal source of light and truth 

To Thee again, our hearts we raise. 
Except Thou build and keep the house, 
In vain the laborer spends his days. 


WVNEVERSTUY BRE TCORINGS (AGAIN) 229 


Without Thine aid in vain our zeal 
Strives to rebuild these broken walls, 
Vainly our sons invoke the Muse 
Among these sacred groves and halls. 


From off Thine altar send a coal 

As burning seraphs erst have brought, 
Relight the flame that once inspired 
The faithful teachers and the taught. 


Pour on our path, th’ unclouded light 
That from Thy constant favor springs; 
Let heart and hand be strong beneath 
The shadow of Thy mighty wings. 


Recall O God the golden days, 

_ May rude unfruitful discord cease, 
Our sons in crowds impatient throng 
These ancient haunts of white-robed peace. 


So shall our upward way be fair, 
As that our sainted fathers trod, 
Again the Priest and Muse declare 
The holy oracles of God. 


VIEL 
PLEASANT PLACES 


HATEVER Mrs. Spencer’s faults were, she was 
not a maddeningly perfect person. She was 
often pleasantly wrong-headed, interestingly opinion-— 
ated; was liable in her deafness to get hold of a false 
impression and ride it far and hard; was sometimes ultra- 
conservative, and often fiercely partisan, and yet with all 
this, she was a loyal friend and loving, as much as any- 
one who has lived. Everybody who has ever known her: ~ 
well tells the same tale. It is not mere politeness. All 
sorts and conditions of people came to her for sympathy, 
trusted her, and expressed to her their inmost thoughts. 
She loved folks, and she loved every little trait which 
made them genuine and individual. After a long strain 
of expectancy, such as has been shown in former chap- 
ters, anything else which can happen to such a woman 
is in the nature of an anticlimax. And yet there is a good 
deal more that should be interesting. There are a great 
many more letters and some writings, which ought to 
appeal to a reader who has come thus far, and been inter- 
ested. It is this mass of material, greater and more 
minute than what has gone before, that is to be sifted 
for the remainder of this book. And if it does not help 
the story, which has been told already perhaps, it will at 
least round out a character which is worth revealing for 
its own sake. 
To Mrs. Ellen Mitchell Summerell she writes a long 


full letter: 
CHapEL Hitt, December 8, 1876. 
My Dear ELLEN: 
I have been in bed all day, trying to beat off an incipient 
.cold. I straggled out of bed a little before dark and got into 


PURASAN DT PLACES 231 


my wrapper and drank my tea which June brought me, read 
a little in a new book Kemp Battle brought me (English Radi- 
cal Leaders), and getting tired of it, and finding June deep ina 
new History of Rome, and disinclined to talk, I have reached 
over the table for my portfolio, and resolved to have a little 
conversation with you before I go to bed again. 

The only paper I find is this foolscap, which I hope you 
will excuse. Ma had a very good letter from your sister Mar- 
garet last night. It was so satisfying, and so natural—seem- 
ing to write her thoughts as they arose. She wants Ma to tell 
her something of your Mother’s young days, and how she 
appeared before Eliza’s birth. 

I have your letter received this week to thank you for 
also. It is a pleasure that you write us as if you felt sure of 
our sympathy. I think as we advance in life the ties that 
were formed in childhood and early youth are the strongest 
of all. The scenes and associations of middle and busy life 
wear out and fade from the mind, and these earlier ones start 
out afresh. All that you say of your mother and your daughter 
and their deaths, is deeply, sorrowfully interesting to me. 
I know what a gap is left in your life by the death of your child. 
The loss of a grown son or daughter has always seemed to 
combine all the elements of calamity. At every turn you are 
reminded of them in one or another capacity. Child, friend, 
companion, assistant, comfort, while round one who had been 
so much of an invalid as Phena had gathered a double amount 
of tender oversight and indulgence. It will be long ’ere your 
heart ceases to bleed. . Yet time will do much for you, and 
God’s grace will do more. There is so much to be thankful 
for, chief and foremost that she went safe. That she had so 
evidently been making ready for her departure, so that when 
the messenger came, she was not frightened or unwilling. 
You will find comfort insensibly, in dwelling on the tokens 
of God’s love to you and to her, all along the way He led you. 

Mary Phillips came over yesterday, and we talked a long 
time of you all. Phena is the fourth one of Mary’s school- 
mates who has died within a few months. Mary is a pleasant 


1 Mrs. Mary Phillips Verner, Charles Phillips’ oldest daughter. 


Fake Vu OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


conversible, sympathetic companion. She has two children, 
has married I judge a man of sense, industry and energy. 
The second son, Will, is doing well in college in the Depart- 
ment of Natural Science. They say he will make a fine chemist. 
The third son, Alex, is studying well, but I do not think him 
especially talented. They are all good boys in the main, with- 
out bad habits or principles. Brother Charles is still in Wash- 
ington City, recuperating. Writes cheerfully, but longs for 
home. They live, as you know, in Governor Swain’s house. 
It was Mr. Green’s in your day. “A great castle’ Laura says, 
“without any room in it.” The Hoopers? have moved again, 
this time from the Hubbard house to the Wheat house. Helen 
Hooper is a fine woman. [I like her very much. She is now ~ 
absorbed in attendance on her invalid husband. 

Mrs. Mary Hooper is as we knew her years ago, very kind 
and sweet, very agreeable in her manners; a woman of great 
natural sensibility and refinement of mind, and with unusual 
culture. But she has some marked peculiarities. A disposi- 
tion to say sharp or biting things strikes me most, I suppose, 
because she so often turns this arrow on me. When I was 
a little girl, and afterwards a young woman, Mrs. Hooper’s 
amusement was to tease me about my nose. Now she is 
perpetually alluding to my deafness. In some way or other, 
more or less offensive, she makes me remember how deeply 
my deprivation impresses her, sometimes lamentably, some- 
times ridiculously. And she is quite hard of hearing her- 
self, which makes her remarks upon me the more singular. 
However she is truly good, and kind and charitable and sin- 
cere, a woman to have a conservative influence, which I think 
in these days is of immense value. Professor Hooper is even 
more of a Bourbon (as it is the fashion to call those who cling 
to the past) than his wife. They studiously shrink from the 
“progress of the age” and think the times are “awful.” 

Old Dr. Hooper was far ahead of them both. What a 
lovely old man he was! I envied you the having had him at 
your house for a few days to entertain and make much of— 

*This Professor Hooper was the son of the one who resigned 


long ago when Governor Swain became President, and who had just 
died at this late day. 


PLEASANT PLAGES 233 


and now he and your dear mother have both gone over to the 
great majority and are numbered with the saints in glory ever- 
lasting. I love to think of these old friends, to talk of them, 
and to recall the days when they were young and we were 
children. Brother Sam on his late visit to North Carolina told 
me he had enjoyed nothing more than to come upon anecdotes 
of Dr. Mitchell among the people in the mountains, and over 
on the borders of Alamance and Chatham counties where he 
is well remembered and talked of. | 

Chapel Hill still retains many external features of its 
old forms, and looks quite familiar, but its society has not 
yet recovered from the exodus that followed the break-up 
of the University. The families who have come in of late 
do not amalgamate, and there is less of sociability, less of 
neighborliness than I ever knew. A disposition to adhere to 
church lines in association is something I can never bear. When 
Kemp Battle and his lovely and gracious wife come here to 
live, I think they will fuse these elements, and make these 
new-comers understand what the conditions of a state institu- 
tion really are. Kemp is surely the right man for his place. 
He brings an enthusiasm and a love for the University that no 
money could buy, and which is indispensable and inestimable. 
They are about to pull down and rebuild the Judge’s old 
house. It looks forlorn enough now, but Mr. and Mrs. K. 
P. Battle are young enough yet to look forward, and enjoy 
planning. After fifty one ceases to do much of that. At 
least it does not come natural. 

We have very agreeable letters from Charles while in 
Washington, supplemented by Sam’s comments. Charles was 
deputed to escort Sister Fanny and Cornelia to one of Mrs. 
Fish’s receptions. Charles went, in his simplicity, and knew 
nothing about it, and when he arrived, he found himself at a 
grand ball,—ladies décolletées in all the full splendor of even- 
ing dress. Sam says poor Charles looked through his specta- 
cles, and over them, and under them, at old necks and shoulders 
which Clay and Webster had often seen displayed. Mrs. 
Fish, herself, dressed in a tarlatan, is considerably over fifty. 


234 OLD DAY SUN (CHAP ED Titi! 


June stopped at Brother Sam’s returning from New York 
and the Centennial. She was very much delighted with what 
she saw, but chiefly I think with Mount Vernon, it being a place 
to stir deeper feelings than those aroused by ordinary sight- 
SECM NET ine 

Wednesday, December 13—I have written this at intervals, 
having been in bed mostly since I began it. Have had a very 
heavy cold, not yet worn off yet by any means, but I am 
dressed and feel more civilized. Ma has just such another, 
but she will not give up and go to bed, and have her tea 
brought to her, and her feet bathed and her head comforted. 
She will stay up, and she likes to make her tea herself. Your 
mother was so different in many ways from mine. Ma still 
reads much of her time—enjoys the New York Post, and the 
Nation, and the New York Observer. But I see her Bible more 
frequently on her lap than any other book. She thinks much 
of her approaching change. I think she is afraid of the pro- 
longed struggle at the last. What a mercy is an unconscious 
and gradual withdrawal without pain or observation. 

June sits near me, reading her German. She is very steady 
and painstaking in all her occupations. Still very young and 
childlike. When I look at her, and think what you have lately 
lost, I wonder, if, should God’s judgment take my child away, 
would God’s grace be given me to bear my trouble as you have 
done. | 

I have written this unconscionably long letter partly to 
please myself, and partly in the hope of withdrawing your mind 
for a short time from sad thoughts. Whether I in any degree 
succeed or not, dear Ellen, you may take it as an expression 
of friendship and sympathy. May God bless you and yours. 
You will not have a Merry Christmas, nor a Happy New 
Year, but you will by degrees take comfort, and be able again 
to enjoy life, and the blessings that remain to you. You 
always have “Hope” you know! 

Very affectionately, and truly, 
C. P. SPENCER 


Mrs. Spencer, having seen her first object restored 
to life again, seems to have felt the need of a cause. The 


PUCASANT PEACHES 235 


one she chose was that of woman’s, or as they called it 
then, ‘“Female” education. She wrote at this time a letter 
to Major Bingham, a veteran educator of boys, keeper 
of a famous classical and military school, which his 
father had kept before him. This letter is not preserved, 
or at least not at hand, but the reply tells a good deal: 


January 22, 1876. 
DeEaR Mapam: 

In answering your letter, ... there is in this state a 
great apathy on the subject of male education. There are 
twenty-five or more female schoolbuildings in North Carolina, 
costing from twenty to fifty thousand dollars. There are twen- 
ty-five hundred girls going to boarding schools, paying a hun- 
dred dollars a year for instruction. I am touching on the 
difference in male and female education in this state. First 
the cost. The cost of female education and its value are, I 
consider, like the legs of a lame man that are not equal; value 
a pitiful stump, value I mean as affecting a woman’s life work. 
The girls can get a good solid education, the boys are put be- 
hind the plough handles. 

I have heard of Mary Lyon. I wish she would come down 
here before my girls come to the front. 

The male and female intellect is an old and vexed ques- 
tion; too old and vexed to discuss here. Dr. Johnson’s idea 
about a woman who speaks in public, etc., being like a dog 
that walks on his hind-legs, is about right. But Bishop Pearce 
of the M. E. Church said that the records of Methodist Edu- 
cation showed little if any difference, in simple power of acqui- 
sition in girls and boys, young men or young women. But 
that one thing indicated overwhelmingly inherent weakness 
in the sex, to wit their style of dress. 

Men’s fashions change, but never hamper the person, or 
prevent locomotion. Women’s fashions change and go to ex- 
tremes, hamper the person, expose to cold, prevent locomotion, 
and destroy comfort. Men dress to please themselves. Wo- 
men dress, not to please men, nor themselves, but to excite envy 
in each other. This is all Bishop Pearce, not me. 


NAS 


SEP Cay S 


Eee 


— 


ak cog 
Ne 


Pot LER 


Ta 


THE OLD UNIVERSITY LIBRARY 


PIE ASANT PEACKS Zov 


I am glad that ugly woman got the Greek prize, but her 
Greek and the culture superinduced by it will hardly add to 
‘her capacity of performing her duties as wife and mother. 
Common law is common sense. A woman ceases to exist if 
she’ marries. 

This absorption by and in her new condition is overlooked 
by female education, it seems to me. More money is spent in 
North Carolina, teaching girls to sing, to yell like hyenas and 
tear the piano to pieces, than would sustain ten first class male 
schools of 75 to a hundred boys each—And what a difference 
would there be in results! 

I hope the University is doing well. It is the hope of the 
State. 


Is not this a strange letter to be writing to Mrs. Spen- 
cer? She was not dampened by it as regards her zeal 
for education. There are many little traces, such as the 
one in the next letter, showing that she’ was now speak- 
ing a word for the girls whom Major Bingham thinks 
are so negligible. To Mrs. Ellen Mitchell Summerell : 


April 5, 1877. 
My Dear ELLEN: 

The same mail brought me yours of the third, and one from 
your sister Margaret, written as becomes such a High Church 
woman as she is, on Easter Monday. I will not say to you 
that I enjoyed them both. You know me and my tastes well 
enough to be sure that I prize one word from old friends far 
more than many words from new ones. And especially of 
late years, as I begin to go down the slope, I turn more to the 
past and feel drawn to revive old friendships with greater 
warmth. I am very glad that you write to me, my replying 
to you at once you must take as the proof of it. 

Margaret told me Eliza had gone to pay you a visit. I 
enjoy the thought of the comfort it must be to you to have 
your sisters so near you. There are compensations amid all 
our troubles. Their removal to Statesville has helped you all 
through the sorrows of last November, and reunited you just 
when reunion is most needed and most beneficial. 


238 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


Poor Mary,‘ I often think of her, and her lot in life, with 
wonder. Perhaps, when we all meet in the next life we shall 
talk it over, being then able to see how each of us was led 
by our Father’s hand into the very trials that were needed to 
root out the evil, and develop the virtue, to try the faith, and 
enrich the experience. If Mary had married a man more suited 
to her, she might have been the foremost woman in all North 
Carolina today, as widely known and loved and respected as her 
Father was in his day. Instead of that her astonishing energy 
of mind and body, her wonderful executive ability, her courage 
and hopefulness, her education and talents, have been made to 
find their field in repairing the breaches caused by the errors 
and follies of her husband—in trying to keep up and sustain 
him and his family—to raise her children under more untoward 
surroundings than you or I can ever imagine—happy if she can 
feel their daily bread secured by hardest labor. 

Was this the discipline needed for her high spirit? Or is 
it because the Master takes only His choicest tools for His 
hardest jobs, and she will be seen some day with a far brighter 
crown than some of us who have spent our lives in compara- 
tive ease and sloth. I used to admire Mary in our youth, more 
than I liked her. I like her now as much as I admire, and 
trust that at evening time she will find light and peace in seeing 
her children successfully established in that strange land. 

Her piety towards those two old ladies, her husband’s 
mother and aunt, more than repaid by her own children and 
grandchildren, and her husband able to thank her for deserved 
discipline. . . . 

I do agree with you in the feeling that more calamity, more 
trouble and disaster is abroad than in my young days. People 
of fifty years old and more are able to look back for more 
than a generation, and may see that this is but the harvest 
time of seed sown many years ago. I feel certain that I have 
seen the measures meted by mothers, measured back to their 
daughters more than thirty years afterwards, and the wrongs. 
done by fathers bearing bitter fruit to be plucked by their sons. 

1 Mrs. Richard Ashe, nee Mary Mitchell of Chapel Hill, moved 


out to California after the Civil War, where she suffered the many 
hardships common to pioneers. 


POA SAIN ATE LON CES 239 


There are such seasons recurring at intervals all along the 
course of time. I feel more and more what a priceless inheri- 
tance that of a godly ancestry may be. 

My Mother had an aunt who lived in what Ma calls the 
“Lake Country” of New York State. She was perhaps ninety 
when she died, and judging from her letters written at long 
intervals to Ma, continued till near her death, she was a 
woman of deep piety, with some tinge of mysticism, great 
familiarity with the Scripture, and a turn for philosophical 
speculation. Her letters were quite remarkable, for she must 
have been self taught in her youth; but she kept close to the 
word of God. In her extreme old age her mind seemed 
clearer than ever, and some of her expressions about the “‘signs 
of the times” as she loved to say, were almost prophetic. She 
wrote her last letter before the War broke out, but she firmly 
believed there was a great trouble preparing for the land, and 
afflictions such as had never been seen, to be followed by a great 
awakening of the Church. I recall many of her expressions 
now with wonder. Ma talks often of “Aunt Angeline” with 
great respect. Old people of naturally strong understanding 
who read their Bibles as children do, with implicit belief and 
confidence, do attain in age to an extraordinary insight into 
the tendency of public events. Such and such things have 
been, and therefore they are not afraid to declare that such 
and such will follow. 

Yes, the dear old University seems to be setting its feet 
down firmly once more. Kemp Battle is, I feel certain, the 
right man for the place. His courage and cheerful energy in 
the face of difficulty, his promptness, firmness, and unselfish 
devotion to the cause, give him a more heroic attitude in my 
eyes than I had hitherto supposed him capable of. 

The old chapel will be ready for re-occupation before Com- 
mencement. The new chemical laboratory (under the Un1- 
versity Library) is now lit with gas, and the boys are at work 
in their long aprons down there, distilling, combining, resolv- 
ing, experimenting, in a way that leaves the old ways far 
behind. The new idea is to make the students do all laboratory 
work for themselves. 


240 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


I went up to see the North Carolina Centennial banner the 
other day, with some ladies. (This banner you know, the ladies 
of North Carolina have presented to the Historical Society 
for safe keeping.) It is now in the Library, and then we went 
down to the Lab. and watched the young chemists there. I 
said, O that Dr. Mitchell could see them! You will be glad 
to know that Brother Charles’s son Will seems likely to dis- 
tinguish himself in this Department of Chemistry. The pro- 
fessors give him high praise. Strange that not one of my 
Father’s grandsons has any liking for, or proficiency in mathe- 
matical studies, and the only one of them so far evincing any 
mental energy is a chemist! The Centennial banner is neat, 
modest, tasteful— I like it, though Brother Sam says it made 
but a poor show among the heraldic splendors of the Northern 
‘States. I am glad we have got it back home. It suits us, me 
judice. 

Poor Charles is tied hand and foot these seven weeks with 
rheumatism, unable today to lift himself in bed—he finds 
himself broken winged just when he would like to be making 
superhuman efforts and doing the work of three men—Was 
this the discipline he also needed for his strong will, and some- 
what overbearing temper? It is severe indeed to him, but no 
impatient or fretful or peevish expression ever escaped him. 
I wish sometimes he was cross, rather than so silent, so de- 
pressed, so low. He had a very painful attack this time, is for 
a day or two somewhat better. 

We are hoping to see Brother Sam, who would have come 
ten days ago, if he could have been spared from his post in 
Washington. 

Ma has been very poorly, as I have been, with a terrible 
cold. We are both over it, but look both of us the worse. 
June too has not been well. She and I are both undergoing a 
course of iron and quinine. I hope this will fit me at least for 
sundry tramps this spring, to Otey’s Retreat, Cave’s Mill, and 
the like. Margaret announces that she is getting “too old” for 
such delights. It is only because she has left off the habit 
so long. With a bunch of laurel, or a tress of jessamine in 


PLEASANT PLACES 241 


view, I could tramp it as gaily now as thirty years ago. . It is 
one of my pleasures that June has grown up here and loves 
these localities as warmly as any of us. It makes her more a 
part of myself, and when I see her walking off with the sons 
of old college beaux of mine, to the “Roaring Fountain” or 
“Otey’s Retreat” I felt right dizzy with the feeling that it is 
me—myself, with my youth restored. There are half a dozen 
young men in college whose fathers were friends of mine. 
I love to have them come to see us—I was going to say “to 
see me’ when happily I remembered that perhaps I was not 
the principal attraction! June is still much of a child, but 
being sprightly and intelligent, has made friends and is popu- 
lar. I don’t let her call herself a full blown young lady yet, 
but you know that in a college society it is nearly impossible 
to prevent early gallantry. Fortunately the boys have a cer- 
tain awe of Mrs. Spencer which makes it easier to control 
their assiduities. 

Mrs. Shober has written to me of her intentions and I 
warn President Battle that he will have to take part in a 
tableau on Commencement Day. I declare I think it would 
be a pretty sight. A group of pretty girls offering gracefully 
their tribute to the University equipment. 

Only I think North Carolina ought to give the girls of 
the state some attention as well as the boys. Co-education 
will never do in these latitudes, but don’t you think the State 
ought to make some provision for teaching its girls?) When 
I think of the poor crumbs they have to pick up, I get angry. 

Mr. Battle encourages June and Lucy in their attendance 
at the College Lecture museum this winter, but there are too 
few girls here to carry on such attendance. And yet I do 
want June to have some instruction in physics. 

The Davie Poplar is leafing out wonderfully—more an 
emblem of the University than ever. The lightning struck, 
but did not kill it. I see old Lem Yancey walking by. Very 
poor, but always lighting up with a smile. Benton Utley creeps 
about the streets, ragged and shabby. Quantum mutatus! 
There are not many in Chapel Hill whom you knew, but the 


242 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


rocks and woods and hills are here yet, and I want you to come 
this summer and pay me a visit, and walk all round every- 
where. Can you not? June says she means to go to the moun- 
tains with Mrs. Grant, and I want you to come and see me. 
So come on, and bring Hope with you. Ma sends her love. 
She heard lately of the death of her only remaining brother. 
She remains alone of a family of seven. She is getting as 
deaf as I am, but does not like to be reminded of it. Have 
you seen Dr. Deems’ new Sunday Magazine? He wants me 
to write for it, and maybe I will. Meanwhile I am not doing 
anything in particular. I teach Lucy Phillips and June, Racine, 
and Horace. June teaches her five little girls. I read aloud 
to her at night, Shakespeare, Hugh Miller, Macaulay, and now — 
and then a good novel. The Dr. did not send me his love, but 
I will send him miné. Sister Laura sends you her love. She 
is a wonderful example of endurance and patience. How 
many long illnesses has she nursed Brother Charles through, 
and yet is steadfast, cheerful, and all efficient. I love her more 
and more as we both grow older. 

Now I must close and go to society meeting. We have a 
tiny sewing society and a tiny Sunday School. With a kiss to 
your little Hope, whom I wish to see very much, I am 


Your very affectionate old friend, 


CoRNELIA 


It was at the Commencement of 1877 that Governor 
Vance, now a second time Governor, made a fine and 
eloquent address, a memorial eulogy of Governor Swain. 
Mrs. Spencer says in a letter to Mrs. Swain: 


It was nobly done. He allowed me to read the manuscript, 
and although I could not hear one word, yet I could enjoy the 
occasion. I saw so many of Governor Swain’s old friends and 
neighbors hanging on Vance’s words. Many a handkerchief 
was pressed to eyes at his close, and I just leaned back in my 
place, and cried heartily, the sweetest tears of mingled joy 
and pain of my whole life. 


PUEASANT PLACES 243 


It was in 1877 that the first Summer School of which 
we have record was initiated at Chapel Hill. It was a 
new educational idea, and was of great benefit to educa- 
tion in North Carolina, for men and women both were 
admitted. To these successive Summer Schools came 
many excellent lecturers. Walter Page was one of the 
teachers there for the summer of 1878, and it was here 
that Mrs. Spencer first came to know and so highly to 
appreciate him. 

It was in 1877 that the Board of Trustees tendered 
formal thanks to Mrs. Spencer in recognition of what 
she had done so nobly for the institution. “To Mrs. Cor- 
nelia Phillips Spencer for her unflagging interest in this 
institution, her able efforts on its behalf, and for her clear 
and intelligent reports of its transactions.” To her came 
the duty of reporting the daily Summer School events 
and advantages to the papers of the state. These were 
by way both of news and advertisement. This North 
Carolina Summer School was a very early one, however 
usual they have become since. Also, as women were 
admitted, it gave the first state aid to women’s education. 

In September, 1877, Mrs. Spencer’s aged mother fell 
upon the floor in her house in such a way as to break 
her hip. She is said to have suffered horribly at first, 
and at her age she could never recover her power of 
walking. Her daughter says she leaned over the bed, 
and said to her, on her eighty-second birthday: “Dear 
Ma, you have been spending your birthday as never be- 
fore.” “Never before have I suffered such pain in my 
whole long life,’”’ was her reply. 

Letters of the next two years are very scarce. The 
care of her crippled mother, the interests of the restored 
‘institution, the new friendships and interests of the re- 


244 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


juvenated village, must have taken her whole time. 
There are three long letters from Governor Vance, dated 
respectively : October 21; December 1, 1878; and January 
25, 1879. These are outpourings to a sympathetic 
friend, at the time of the deaths of his mother and his 
wife. They are most emotional and full of sorrow. 
Then when he is finally sent to the United States Senate, 
where he remained till his death, he writes her: 


In the joys that have come to me, and in the sorrows, for 
the last quarter of a century, my friends in Chapel Hill, your- 
self chief among the number, have never failed to rejoice with - 
me when I rejoiced and mourn with me when I mourned. I 
have often thanked God for leading my steps to Chapel Hill. 
I wish I could say more, but with kindest love to you, and all 
that are dear to you, I am 

Your faithful friend, 
Z. B. VANCE 


In the early fall of 1880, June Spencer went to New 
York to attend the Cooper Union art school. She was 
there without coming home the entire winter, a very 
eventful one for her mother, as it turned out to be. The 
letters written to her by Mrs. Spencer have been pre- 
served, every one. They give the fullest reports of each 
and every day as it passed. Very much of this is too 
intimate and minute for quotation. It is only natural 
that a person as deaf as Mrs. Spencer, a mother as 
devoted as she, and one who had been having all her con- 
nections with the outside maintained and carried on 
through the speech and the dutiful affection of this only 
daughter should write to her daughter fully and in great 
detail. She talked to her on paper just as she would 
have done face to face. The letters are beautiful, but 
so detailed and so manifestly written for each passing 


PLEASANT PLACES 245 


moment, and for the one person to whom they were 
sent, that they cannot be quoted very copiously. They 
show a relation very true, and very wonderful, but too 
sacred for public exhibition. There is, and we should 
be glad there may be, emotion far too strong and personal 
for current circulation. But one or two letters of this 
winter will be quoted to show the character of the writer. 


XVIII 
WRITING ABOUT CHANGES 


CuHaPeL Hix, Saturday, September 4, 1880. 
My DEarESsT: 

I have been all the morning all through the usual Satur- 
day work, trying to think how people feel when their children 
die. Kiow has Mrs. Kerr lived all this year since Alice died? I 
feel as if nothing were of any more account, nothing worth 
doing. In fact I have the horrors and look forward to an 
even worse spell tomorrow. Sunday is always a day of gloom 
to me—and now—Well, one lives along somehow.—I lived 
through your Father’s death somehow, and I suppose I shall get 
through this winter. But yesterday and today have been 
dreadful! 

I stood at the gate a long time after you drove off, not 
thinking of anything, just standing and keeping myself from 
breaking down.—When I came in I stood talking to Grandma 
for some time. Then I went upstairs. Everything of yours: 
that hung there was a fresh dagger. I took everything and 
folded them up and put them away. Then I went to the bureau 
and opened every drawer—took up your little ribbon trunk. 
I sat down on the side of the bed with it—took up the bits 
and bows of ribbon and kissed them, and smoothed them out. 
That little trunk! How it made me think of you and Alice 
Kerr, and your childhood, and all the years that you have 
had it—Everything came to mind. Then I locked that, and 
took down your little writing box, and cleaned all the little odds 
and ends out of it, and dusted it. Then I looked through the 
things in the table drawer. How everything stabbed me! 
I put away everything of yours worth putting away. The 
whole afternoon I absorbed myself in such work.—After I 
had got through my solitary work, I had my supper. Bettie 
is to stay in the house, and sleep here, at least for the present. 
Then I talked to Grandma a little while, and when my mail 
came, I looked it over. I went upstairs while Bettie went to 
sleep near Grandma, in my summer room. 


WRITING ABOUT CHANGES 247 


My Child, my Child, how my heart cried out for you! 
That deserted room! That lonely bed! Everything is full 
of you, eloquent of happy days forever gone, of a sweet 
childhood, and a pure, modest, well spent young womanhood— 
a happy time that will return no more. The page is full, the leaf 
is turned, the chapter is ended. God only knows what the 
future will bring. The past has been happy. That at least 
is secure. Now let us trust Him still. 

This morning I went out and made my Sunday loaf of 
bread. Then Bob [the cat] and I sat down to breakfast— 
then I took the broom and dust-cloth and put the whole house 
to rights, finishing with a splendid bouquet of zinnias and 
grasses. 

I do not know how and why I can do it, for all the time 
I feel as if my heart were broken—O my darling girl, every 
sharp word I ever said to you comes up and stabs me now, 
over and over. 

I have always expected or rather wanted too much from 
you. I wanted you to be this and that, and show such and 
such traits, forgetting that you could not be other than nature 
and my bringing up had made you. I put so much stress on 
the things I missed in you, and did not let you know how 
entirely I was satisfied in the main developments of your char- 
acter. Your modesty, humility, truthfulness, purity, stead- 
fastness, and general reliability of character have been beyond 
all praise. And how often I thank God for you, and count 
it the great blessing of my life that you are what you are. 

One of the reasons why I have wanted you to go away 
from home for awhile has been that some sides of your charac- 
ter may have more time to develop and more opportunity to 
grow than they have here. It is time that they should. You 
must learn to act, to think and plan for yourself. It has 
always been so very precious to me that you came to me, and 
depended on me just as if you were my little child still .. . 
so sweet to do things for you, that in my selfishness I have 
‘kept you too long dependent, and wanted you to do as I 
liked without being satisfied to let you follow your own tastes 
about little things. In all matters of consequence, I believe 


248 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


and feel that we think alike. In all questions of right and 
wrong, I feel sure of your judgment. In small affairs it is 
time you should do as you think best, and learn to act for 
yourself in the affairs of life, as you will have to learn at 
some time or other. I hope this winter will set you far on 
your way towards gaining ability to sustain yourself, in a better 
higher sphere of work than Chapel Hill can give you; will 
help to sweeten and ripen your character, and disposition for 
perfect womanliness. . . 

It is now after dinner, and Bob has come in and jumped 
upon the window sill and gone to sleep, close by me. Every- 
thing is clean, and silent, and awfully lonely. I don’t want you 
to be back here this minute, any more than if I thought you 
were in Heaven, but the sense of loss is the same—lI must | 
live more now for Grandma’s comfort than has been possible 
of late. She will be better now the house is so quiet and there 
is nothing to excite or worry her. 

I can make her far more reasonable, talk to her more, amuse 
her, make things smooth for her, and see that she is com- 
fortable as far as she will let herself be made comfortable. 

Seeing people passing to and fro, and not being able to 
hear what they are saying, makes her so fractious! 

Sunday evening [afternoon]|—-What a long lonely day! 
No one coming or going. No voice to break the silence. No 
interest in anything left. Both the cats have walked around 
after me the whole day. It is extremely curious. I think it 
must be because I have spoken to them and noticed them more 
than usual. 

The silence of the house also affects them. Cats have a 
good deal more intelligence than they are given credit for. 
They have not much power of expression, but if given time, 
they put two and two together. These two miss you, and miss 
the life of the house, as much as an intelligent dog could. 
They know something is wrong, and that I am troubled. I 
wander round and round, and walk to and from the house. 
Still it is, and quiet, and very hot. 

Just here I lifted up my eyes, and beheld all Mr. Newton’s 
hogs and pigs, great and small, in my front yard. I arose and 


WRITING ABOUT CHANGES 249 


donned my sun-bonnet, and rushed down. Away went the 
hogs, and I followed down to the barn. There was the gate 
open, and one of the pickets torn off the fence. Negroes, no 
doubt after the figs in the garden, have done this. I closed 
the gate, took off both my garters and tied the picket in posi- 
tion—went through the garden, not one ripe fig left. 

Such are the small blisters of life. And so I will close 
my long letter. Besides I must now go down to see what the 
cow is about. I do not mean to spend all my Sundays wres- 
tling with cows and pigs. I am half ashamed to send you this 
letter my darling, and half a mind to destroy it today. Good- 
bye,—your Mother. 


CHapPEL Hm, October 7, 1880. 
My Dearest ONE: 


I have been out all the afternoon with Mrs.— in the phaeton, 
making visits, and seeing what people will give toward the 
convicts’ dinner, which will be tomorrow. [This was a dinner 
gotten up by Mrs. Spencer for the hundred convicts who had 
been working on the railroad, now about finished, which was 
to connect Chapel Hill with the main line.] One lady took very 
high ground. ‘Principled against anything of the sort’— 
“Wondered I could think we owed anything to those wicked 
criminals who had only got their just deserts,” etc., etc. When 
she had finished I had my say, and gave her a good “setting 
down.” Idiots will always be in the land. 

I did not get home till dark. I felt discouraged and un- 
easy, for there was an evil spirit abroad in the community 
which, however one may despise it, has power to poison one’s 
comfort. Most of those in our neighborhood gave liberally ex- 
cept , who said I should not have gotten it up, and 
that they would not give those wretches a mouthful. Con- 
temptible of them! 

However, when I got up next morning, and had a cup of 
coffee, I felt better. Mrs. Guthrie came to talk over things, 
then we went to Mrs. Carr’s and she was very clever! When 
I came home I weighed out a big cake, and found that Bettie 
had cooked the big piece of beef, and made fifty apple turn- 
overs. 


250 OLD DAYS GN ChLAE SD ets 


Sunday, October 10—-Friday was a cloudy day with a 
little wind. Everything down this way was ready on time. 
Mr. Cheshire’ is to be Chaplain at the dinner. The spring 
wagon was filled to overflowing. Then I gave Bettie last 
charges about Ma, then I kissed her goodbye, and took my 
grey shawl, and a lovely bunch of flowers Mrs. Hooper had 
sent to put in the middle of Colonel Holt’s big cake, and set 
out on my long walk. I am dressed in my best, and as I walk 
along up the street everybody looks pleasantly at me. Mr. 
Patterson has his horse and wagon running about town, pick- 
ing up things also. My spring wagon stops at the Post Office, 
and Mr. Mickle, who has all along been one of the doubting 
Thomases, and said I could not do it, comes beaming out, 
and pours two bushels of fine red apples in on everything. 

Mrs. Taylor joins me, and we walk on merrily. The con- 
victs have not yet finished making the long plank table. 

There were Mrs. Carr, and the others, unpacking the bas- 
kets, while two or three of the “trustys” helped. Mrs. Taylor 
and I took off our gloves and went to work. The long table 
for ninety-six convicts had tin plates and cups and spoons ar- 
ranged on it. 

Beef and ham and chicken were piled on each plate, apple 
pie, potato custard, apple turn-overs, ginger cakes, light bread 
biscuit, apples, potatoes, till you couldn’t see the planks. I 
never saw a greater profusion of good substantial victuals in 
my life. 

Jim Taylor said there was more food on each plate prepared 
for a convict, than he could eat in a week. At some distance 
off a long table was set with knives, forks, plates, and tumblers, 
for Colonel Holt, and the guard, who were to eat afterwards. 
On that we placed a fine ham, turkey, chicken, slaw, tomatoes, 
potatoes, cabbage, pickle, cake, custard pies, and my big cake 
with the bouquet in the center. 

When all was ready, the convicts were marched up, and 
ranged at the table. Mr. Cheshire said grace, and the poor 
things fell to. We all stood and watched them. The convicts 


1 Mr. Cheshire mentioned here is now one of the Episcopal Bishops 
of North Carolina, residing in Raleigh. 


WRITING ABOUT CHANGES 251 


ate and ate, and laughed, and joked and ate some more, and 
drank their coffee (made in an immense iron pot, over the 
fire by the roadside) and ate again. 

I never saw people eat so. When they were fairly full, 
Colonel Holt told them to fill their jacket pockets if they chose, 
and in a moment the board was cleared. Then they were 
told to sit down, and were guarded by a few rifles, while 
Colonel Holt and the rest of the guard sat down. We ladies 
waited on them. After everybody was through they made the 
convicts rise, pull off their hats and cheer us, which they did 
with a will. I had a towel in my hand and I waved it. Then 
we drank some coffee and sat about. Colonel Holt said that 
the convicts had worked so well and with such cheerfulness 
since they had got wind of the dinner, that he thought they 
could have finished the railroad clear to town, without a guard. 
At parting he made me a formal speech, for do what I will 
people come and stick me forward. He invited all the ladies 
of Chapel Hill to meet him in six or seven weeks, when the 
first train of cars would be ready for them, and he would take 
them wherever they wanted to go. (1 believe I will please 
to go to New York City to see you.) I replied that “We 
ladies felt ourselves the obliged parties in being able to do 
this kindness. That we had enjoyed the occasion more than 
any,’ etc. Then we gave the convict women and various 
hangers on and waiters their dinner. There was a quantity 
left, which Mrs. Carr took in charge to distribute to the poor. 
I sent home every utensil I had borrowed, and everybody who 
had no other way to ride, and while waiting for the wagon to 
come back the last time for me, walked a few hundred yards to 
where the hands were at work levelling a section. They were 
jumping about like boys, all evidently in high spirits. Wasn't 
it a pleasant thing? At four o’clock the spring wagon came 
for me, we rattled home merrily. I sat down by Grandmother 
and told her everything, and then went over to Mrs. Battle’s 
and told her and Mr. Battle everything. As Bettie said, it 
was “right plumb-dark”’ when I came home. 

Saturday morning I felt tired, very, but in the afternoon 
I took a nap and felt better. I cannot tell you how lovely the 


FOUNTAIN 


= 
= 


THE ROARING 


WRITING ABOUT CHANGES __253 


woods are now. No frost in town, but just enough in the 
country to tip the trees in a charming way. Autumn, here and 
there, laying “a fiery finger on the leaves. . . .” 


November 11, 1880. 
DEAREST : 

I do not know when I have been so angry, so thoroughly 
and contemptuously angry as for some little time past, culmi- 
nating today; feeling this evening as if I must whip somebody 
or something. Tomorrow the University lands are to be sold, 
a portion of them. North Carolina sits there and allows this 
to be done, land donated to the University by Revolutionary 
patriots for a sacred purpose, every square foot of which should 
be precious. To think of these hills and woods and rocks and 
springs passing into the hands of anybody to be turned into 
cottonfields! Think of them possessing Newton’s Grove, 
Piney Prospect, Roaring Fountain! The census returns say 
that North Carolina spent for liquor last year eight million 
dollars, and yet she is too poor to save the University from 
spoilation. 

Last night I came home late from Mr. Battle’s and wrote 
to Mr. Paul Cameron and begged him to come forward and 
save the land. Buy it in and hold on to it. The University 
may be able to buy it back from him some day, and meanwhile 
if it is his it will not seem so far gone. 

Sunday, November 14—-I got a letter from Mr. Cameron, 
which I inclose for you to read. The dear, kindly, courtly old 
gentleman! It did me good, I can tell you. Next day came 
down Mr. Benehan Cameron and Mr. John Graham to buy 
the land for Mr. Cameron. 

I felt like screaming with joy, when I heard it! 


A few acres of this land were left to Mrs. Spencer by 
Mr. Paul Cameron’s will, in order that she should own 
some of the actual soil of her beloved village. It was 
sold by her daughter after the mother’s death, the pro- 
ceeds being used to erect gravestones over the Phillipses 
in the Chapel Hill cemetery. 


254 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


December 1, 1880. 


We have had two lovely rainy days, words would fail 
to tell how I have enjoyed them. I sat last night all alone, 
the rain pouring all the evening. I wrote and wrote, and then 
I sewed a little on flannels for Grandma, and then I wrote some 
more. The night was black, blacker, blackest. You don’t 
know anything about black nights in a great city. At half- 
past eight, how good to see Ben come in dripping with his lan- 
tern and the mail—and your letter! 

You take things too much to heart June! I “never say any- 
thing about your coming back here to Chapel Hill.’ Why 
should I? Life is too uncertain to be calculating a year ahead, 
and if you once fix your mind on doing thus and so, at such © 
a time, and then have to give it up, you have been only hugging 
a day dream, preparing disappointment for yourself. 

People say, “Oh, but I enjoy the anticipation!’ I had far 
rather go on quietly calm and cool, ready for anything, without 
any anticipations. I suppose that is instinctive with me. A 
sort of fending off of trouble and disappointment. I hate dis- 
appointments so much. When I was young I used to feel them 
so keenly. Little things had power to poison my happiness. 
I shrink from such things now. I try never to fix my hopes on 
anything. I think it may add a keener pang to Hell, if one 
should remember that one once thought he would be sure of 
Heaven ian 

; December 4, 1880. 
My Dear AnD Lovety DAUGHTER: 


You will please to note what I wrote you of the futility of 
making plans for our future when life is so full of short 
and unexpected turns even to people who may reasonably claim 
to be settled. 

A very sharp turn has just occurred next door to us, utterly 
unlooked for and accompanied with cruel pangs of disappoint- 
ment and mortification. Our friend Dr. Simonds has felt 
himself compelled to resign and leave. He has become in- 
volved in trouble with the students. 

On Thursday last the Senior class went into his recitation 
room turbulently and noisily. He remarked to them that he 


WRITING ABOUT CHANGES 255 


had hitherto supposed he was instructing gentlemen, but their 
behavior made it problematical whether they were not perhaps 
little boys. (You see how he used the word gentlemen as 
being men as opposed to little boys. ) 

Certain of the Southern bloods fired up at this remark as 
supposing he had said they were not gentlemen (that word 
so dear to Southern hearts and so little understood in truth 
by many who claim it), and when the lecture was over... 
{three students] went up to him and one assailed him with most 
insulting profanity and giving him three minutes to take back 
his words, frantic and furious with rage. This one called him 
a “G— d— scoundrel, a d— infernal hound of a Yankee who 
only knew the insides of a grasshopper,” etc. (And this by 
way of asserting their claim to be considered gentlemen. ) 

Our friend the Professor interrupted the torrent of abuse 
and blasphemy by saying that he had insulted no one. Had 
no such thought or intention, but the spokesman would not 
listen. He foamed with anger and rage, he demanded a 
watch, he held it up. ‘Three minutes, you damned hound to 
retract your words!’ (The Professor unhappily, faltered. 
He was so astounded, so confused. He stood alone. He 
remembered all he had heard of Southern violence and murders. 
He thought that if he had a personal scuffle three to one he was 
ruined. He said, ‘“‘three minutes is too short a time.” The 
spokesman redoubled his abuse, held out his watch and said, 
“Three minutes, that’s all the time you shall have,” and the 
Professor—gave up, retracted his words, and well knowing 
what he had done, went home and wrote out his resignation! 

You know just how the students are in such a thing. None 
of them have the sense or manliness or moral courage to pur- 
sue the proper course. They side with insurgents of course, 
with the one, there was but one, who spoke. The class stood 
looking on, and not one stood by the Professor. Poor fellow, 
he knows he has shown the white feather, and that is the 
sharpest pang of all to him too! 

If he had but spoken with dignity, had said he would 
defend himself if they touched him, it might have brought the 
better sense of the class to his side. O it is all so miserable! 


256 OUD“DAYS TN! CHAPEL Hit 


And some have seemed to think it all a good joke, spirited, a 
display of boyish high spirit! And O for the evil result to the 
University ! 

I went over to see my neighbor afterwards. He came in 
and began to talk about it at once. He said very firmly, “I 
cannot stay because I could not control my classes. I shall be 
better away. I don't understand your Southern ways, nor 
your Southern use of words. Iam not like you, and never shall 
be. I have failed and had better go away.” What a sudden 
turn is this! 


The winter of 1881 was the snowiest, bitterest win- 
ter ever known in North Carolina in the memory of. 
those then alive. Snow, sleet, thaw, rain, freeze, and 
da capo for two months. Not being prepared for such 
cold weather or such prolonged cold, the thin-walled 
houses, heated with the open fireplaces hitherto deemed 
sufficient, were never really warm from day’s end to day’s 
end. Especially the poor negroes, an improvident race, 
suffered terribly. On New Year’s day, 1881, Mrs. Spen- 
cer is writing to her daughter in New York City: 


. . . Bettie went off today for her holiday, and Sarah will 
come in each day to see what we need. Grandma and I are 
living in as small a compass as possible, on account of the cold. 
I have had but one New Year visitor, and I hailed him and 
made him come in. It was Mr. Charles W. Johnston, and I 
gave him cake, fruit, jelly, figs, and lemonade, all ready in 
case some one should come. But it is very cold and very 
dreary. I have to attend to Grandma who in such weather 
requires constant attention to keep her warm. I get up at 
two o'clock in the night to heat bricks, to warm her bed again. 
Then I get up at daylight and go through the same process, 
and make her a cup of tea in addition. At eighty-five years 
the flame of vitality burns low; but she drinks her tea, and goes 
back to sleep, and I cook my own breakfast at the hearth, two 
eggs and toast, and a cup of tea. I simply cannot go out in 
the cold to grind coffee. 


WRITING ABOUT CHANGES 257 


January 2—Sarah and her boy came in this morning; it 
has snowed all night and filled up all the paths. I gave her 
and her son breakfast and a lot of bread, molasses and potatoes 
to carry away. I cannot tell what she and others like her 
are to do while this weather lasts. 

Everyone in the village is short of wood, and what do poor 
negroes like Sarah do for wood? 

January 7, 1881—Our Bettie is sick. I had a note from 
her. She broke out with measles or chicken-pox as soon as she 
got to the country, and was, she says, sicker than she ever 
was in all her life. Grandma is quite well. We have plenty of 
light-bread, sausage, and a piece of beef. 

I make the tea and coffee by the dining room fire. Bob sits 
by and watches me with gravity of demeanor. Since the thaw 
began the roads are terrible. The point is to be cheerful and 
good humored under these circumstances of discomfort. 

We have had two weeks of skating. .. . 

January 9—Today everything is again thickly covered 
with snow. 

January 16—Sleet all over everything. I have for two days 
been busy making a warm double wrapper for Grandma, out of 
that French calico of yours lined with grey flannel. It was a 
job, a work of art. Yesterday at three o’clock I finished the 
last button, and Grandma put it on. 
~ On New Year’s day, Uncle Sam writes from Washington, 
he went to call on Governor Vance, and the Governor said 
one Vancey thing. Talking to Uncle Sam about Christmas 
Day, and the other Church festivals, Vance said, ““We don’t 
care much for set days, to observe them.” A Roman Catholic 
lady, a friend of the second Mrs. Vance, looked at Governor 
Vance and asked him to repeat what he had said. The Gover- 
nor repeated it. ‘Now who do you mean by we,” she asked. 
Vance answered, “‘God—and the Presbyterians.” The lady did 
not smile, but looked at Vance sadly and solemnly as one might 
regard a profane sinner. Uncle Sam says he watched the ex- 
pression of the lady’s face with much interest. He considers 
that there is an attempt being made to convert Vance. Mrs. 
Vance did not hear this. 


258 OLD IDAYS TN CHAPRED TIT 


Senator Vance had married a second time, after he 
went to Washington as Senator from North Carolina. 
Writing Mrs. Spencer an excuse for not coming to the 
Commencement of 1880, he said that he was going to be 
married, and so had a scriptural excuse, adding, ‘““Man 
proposes, and woman—accepts.” 


January 20, 1881—Tonight I took Bettie and went to the 
Post-Office. It was not yet open, but there were fifty students 
before the door, watching one of them disport himself on what 
they call a bicycle. I never saw one before. The fellow flew 
up and down the sidewalk perched upon it, at a great rate. 

Yes, 1880 has been a kind year to us both! Miss Mary 
Smith wants me to write Miss Maria Spear’s obituary. I do 
not want to do it, but of course I have got it todo! When you 
come to Heaven my dear, after long years I hope that I have 
lived there, it will be one of the first questions I shall ask you— 
And who did write my obituary? 

January 29—TI received a photograph of Mr. Cameron, the 
best likeness, taken by Sarony. Mr. Cameron sent with it a 
little note, begging to have me include him among my house- 
hold friends. I shall want a frame for this picture. I wanted 
to kiss it, it was so perfect. 

February 20—Your Grandma is quite sick. A bad cold, 
she has, and just now she 1s going into one of those sleeping 
spells of hers. You know she has had one of them every spring 
since 1877. This time she has been asleep forty-eight hours, 
hardly waking to drink a little tea now and then. Of course I 
sent for the doctor. He gives her a little medicine for her 
throat. Thinks her sleeping a constitutional affair. Nothing 
to do but watch her, keep her warm, and let her sleep. I have 
been up and down continually all of two nights, seeing that 
she was warm. 


On February 22 old Mrs. Phillips died, quietly sleep- 
ing her life away. And so Mrs. Spencer is writing June 
all about it: 


WRITING ABOUT CHANGES 259 


Grandma is gone, does it not seem strange? although it 
was in truth to be looked for, day by day. It seemed incredi- 
ble to me that I should have no mother. I go in where she lies, 
and I talk to her. Oh Ma! Oh my dear old Mother, why did 
you go so suddenly, without any parting words? No appre- 
hensions, she was not thinking of it herself. When Brother 
Sam came, we went in and stood together by our mother. 
She lies peacefully on the lounge in the middle of the parlour. 
I wish my dearest could see her. The sweetest picture of an 
old lady asleep with no trace of care, or pain, tranquil and 
lovely. I sent to have a cap made for her, and it is of sheer 
muslin with wide pleated border and wide strings. She has a 
shawl round her, a white lace handkerchief, and wide lace 
ruffles over her hands. After we had dressed her and laid 
her out, I sat down, as I have said, and talked to her. She 
looked so radiantly serene. I told her I had dressed her as 
nicely as I could, that I had done my best for her, and that she 
looked now as I had wanted her to look every day, but I said, 
“That was your little mistake dear Ma, you never would dress 
up nice, and I used to scold you, for I did desire you always 
to appear well. You never did think enough of your own 
personal wants... .” 

Everybody has been here today, literally everybody. Even 
poor old Lem Yancey. All the respectable people of the vil- 
lage, many students, many negroes. For the funeral we did 
not send any paper or funeral notice round. When I got home 
from the church, walking with Uncle Sam, there was dear 
old Aunt Dilsey sitting by the fire. Uncle Sam said to her 
that he thought so much of her, for coming and staying with 
BS, 

I was always good to Mother. I have never begrudged her 
anything. I have never felt it a hardship to wait upon her, 
and alas, I shall never feel impatient with her again. We have 
been very happy together this winter, and when I would put 
her to bed she would often thank me, and bless me. Dilsey is 
here staying all the time, sucha comfort. .. . 

All day I have been going over Mother’s trunks and boxes 
—I am so glad you are spared all this—and have laid out. 


260 OLD( DAYS IN CHAPERM VE it 


things to be given away, and things to be divided. Pa’s old 
books are to go to the University. What a sudden and short 
turn in life is this, yet Sam says he has long looked forward 
to it. There was much to be proud of about Ma, much that 
you may well remember. .. . 

February 25, 1881—After dinner yesterday I had a little 
talk with your Uncle Sam. He said that Grandma had left 
four thousand dollars in money, that neither he nor Charles 
would touch a cent of it, that it was very scanty pay for what 
I had done all these year for her. And then he said he wanted 
me to get up and go home with him, at once. I said I could 
not do that, and I cannot. What is to be done with the property 
in this house? He said, “Sell nearly all of it, and save only 
the few pieces especially endeared to us’. . . . I do not know 
how to face all these changes. We did not decide on anything. 

This house you know belongs to Charles and Laura, was 
left to them, and Ma has paid them rent for it each year. I 
feel in a dream—dazed! 

I think my dear June must know what pain all this gives 
me. I cannot stay on here alone. If I were rich enough, I 
should keep this house, and shut it up, and go away next 
week. Uncle Sam says, “Give away a great deal of the old 
furniture, not of any value.” Of course to a man living as he 
does our old chairs and bedsteads look both shabby and poor, 
but I cling to them. I feel lost and shipwrecked when men 
talk business to me. I cannot reply. The reasons I have 
to oppose them are, or seem to be, sheer childishness. I cannot 
live alone, I do not wish to try. I cannot go and live perma- 
nently in Washington, I will not. 


After consideration, and much heart-rending hesita- 
tion, she did decide to leave Chapel Hill. She was ready, 
and left Chapel Hill for her brother’s home in Washing- 
ton, on March 24, 1881. 

The break up of Mrs. Spencer’s home after the death 
of her mother marks the epoch of her life when the down- 
ward slope becomes perceptible. Almost total deafness 
and the lowered rhythm of her vitality become apparent. 


WRITING ABOUT CHANGES 261 


Her days are less active. From this time she grows more 
self inclosed, more contemplative. She mellows, and yet 
she becomes more remote from daily currents and events. 
Like Miss Martineau, she “shifts her trumpet and takes 
up her knitting’ when the talk does not run in any of 
her channels. From this time forward we witness no 
stirring scenes. It is with her but a drama of the heart 
and mind. Her interest in ideas is not dimmed. She 
reads more widely than ever, and her mental force is not 
abated, but she shows herself more reminiscent, more 
tolerant, more reflective. From this time forth she was 
separated from her daughter a good deal, until she finally 
went to Cambridge, Massachusetts, to live with her, in 
1894. June is teaching at first, then is gone to Europe, 
and finally is married in 1885. These separations from 
her daughter make her confide in her diary more and 
more. Until this year of 1881, Mrs. Spencer had passed 
the much greater portion of her life in North Carolina. 
Besides two short visits to New York City, and her so- 
journ in Alabama, she had travelled very little. She had 
never even glimpsed the North Carolina mountains, 
which she would have so enjoyed seeing. She who loved 
nature with such passion, speaks often of her longing for 
travel: 

I don’t know anything I would rather do, than travel with 
my Dearest. Go where we could see rivers and mountains to- 
gether. What a sensation I had to see the Potomac! No one 
who has never seen a great river can form any idea of what 
it is, and you lose the idea after living a few years away from 
one. 

To see that magnificent stream, magnificently gliding on, 
is an ever fresh delight. It looks fit to bear the navies of the 
world—and to see Washington City lit up at night! 


262 OLD DAY StIN | CHAPEIUHICT 


I am in the sitting room, near the sloping banks of books. 
Oh the books, the books in this house of Brother Sam’s. I 
want to be at ’em all the time, read, read—it is a refreshment 
even to stand before ’em and look. 


Mrs. Spencer made her home in Washington with 
her brother for the greater part of two years. She spent 
the summer of 1881 in Plainfield and New Brunswick, 
New Jersey, with her mother’s people, and on one of 
these summer trips she went to Boston, as well as New 
York. As she was in company with her chief corre- 
spondent she writes but little about these summers. Her 
daughter was teaching at Peace Institute in Raleigh, and 
after these two winters in Washington we find Mrs. 
Spencer back in Chapel Hill boarding with her old 
friend Mrs. Henry Thompson. 

Her Washington letters show enlargement of vision, 
for she had the pleasure of seeing pictures, parks, and 
fine buildings. But she had read so widely, and had such 
profit from it, that what she saw was merely the veri- 
fying of things already well conceived, and it would have 
been the same thing to her if she had been in Europe. 
She pined for Chapel Hill. While her nieces loved her 
dearly, and while she was cherished and appreciated by 
them all in her brother’s home, yet she was but a visitor, 
but a relative, very deaf, and quite elderly. She was 
unfitted to enlarge her acquaintance. In Chapel Hill she 
was still the hub of the community. 


XIX 


MRS. SPENCER’S LITERARY TASTES AND 
LATER WRITINGS 


ANY and many are the books which record the 

literary tastes of folk considered worthy of note, 
or possessing some sort of super-personality. Poor 
North Carolina has never had much opportunity to cele- 
brate her notables in this way, for most of her people 
have escaped formal culture, or the attribution of it. 
In Mrs. Spencer, however, and in her circle of friends 
there existed a keen appreciation of good literature. 
Until the coming on of the Civil War gave these people 
much more to think about than mere literature, their 
interests were wide and up-to-date. After that time 
there came an intellectual settling on the lees. Besides, 
in the South after the Civil War modern literature was 
not obtainable except by purchase; and any broad read- 
ing of it was impossible to a people so impoverished as 
the North Carolinians of that time were. 

It was far better, they thought, to read over the old 
books which had nourished their taste in the fifties; 
and this may have satisfied the older folk, but the young 
crave new thought and modern authors. Those young 
folk of just after the war had no time at all for the leis- 
urely culture of ante bellum days. They had pioneering 
to do, in all sorts of industrial and practical ways, and 
pioneering disdains literature; so that this whole condi- 
tion has resulted in North Carolina’s being dropped back 
a good deal behind the current thought of the world out- 
side, a condition which is but slowly being overcome. 


264 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILT’ 


Mrs. Spencer could see all this plainly. She saw that 
education alone, and that administered with a lavish 
hand, could restore the lost prestige. She herself how- 
ever, like those around her, re-read the old rather than 
adventuring into anything new, and her old books were 
not to be despised. She was a thorough Latinist, a 
lover of the classics which have nourished all minds, 
and an especial devotee of Horace. She also read 
and re-read all the poetry that came her way. In her 
journals she quotes perhaps a hundred poets old and 
new, so that one can more easily enumerate the few 
whom she does not quote. When Dickens and Thackeray 
and George Eliot ceased writing she seems impatient of 
the less masterly fiction, and this is perhaps natural. 
One wishes, even if in the wishing one is unreasonable, 
because nobody belongs to another generation than his 
own, that she might have realized the great mind-cur- 
rents which began to wash over the world just then, 
changing all landmarks. 

Reconstructing the mental condition of the seventies 
is difficult. It may best be done by such letters as Mrs. 
Spencer’s, dealing as they do with all the detail of life. 
It was the idea of everyone then that somehow the old 
should be restored, brighter, better, changed in some 
ways, but essentially the same. They did not grasp the 
fact that the old is never restored. It is this backward 
looking attitude of Mrs. Spencer’s which must be indi- 
cated, even if it is made equally clear that it was the 
better part of the old which she favored. 

Continually she reads over her favorite annals of 
English notables of the eighteenth and earlier nineteenth 
centuries, beginning with Boswell’s Johnson. She was a 
person of a practical turn who loved true stories and 


MRS. SPENCER’S LITERARY TASTES 265 


real people. She lived, she herself says, in the society of 
these governing Englishmen and Englishwomen, know- 
ing all their kinships and family connections. Of French 
memoirs she does not seem to have taken much notice. 
Next to North Carolina she seems to have loved Eng- 
land. This great United States seems rather to have 
irritated her by its multiplicity. 

Here is her definition of culture: 

What do we mean by Culture?—not study—not learning. 
Culture is self-discipline. Culture should elevate the whole 
man. Culture should raise our thought to the higher levels. 
Culture is appreciation. 

Of the greater portion of the stuff of which life is com- 
posed, Culture can make nothing. It says nothing to poverty, 
destitution, oppression, pain, disease, to the heart desponding, 
to failure. 


The only published books of Mrs. Spencer’s compo- 
sition are two slender volumes. The Last Ninety Days 
of the War, already fully discussed in its place, and a 
School History of North Carolina, begun in the year 
1887. Besides these her published work is found in 
many a forgotten newspaper article, some of which have 
been quoted. Her sketches of the old University of 
North Carolina are very fine, both as accurate history 
and as literature. Why they lie buried in the sepulchre 
of old dusty newspaper files while so many jejune old 
chronicles have found resurrection and republication is 
a question worth the asking. It is not generally known 
that she wrote two full series of these historical reminis- 
cences, one for the Sentinel published in 1869, the other 
published irregularly in the University Magazine otf 
1880 and later. These series are handled in entirely dif- 
ferent ways, although they tell the same story. The later 


266 ODD DAY S (INI GEAR AE EU 


series is more discursive. They seem to have been pro- 
duced whenever asked for by the students and naturally 
they would be asked for when material for the college 
monthly was needed to pad out an issue, although today 
the padding is all that remains valuable in the files. 

Her message in both these series was most pertinent 
after the Civil War, and it is none the less true today 
after the World War. She wished to show how any 
institution worth the praising is the product of time, and 
the results of slow development, and how nothing, as 
she somewhere phrases it, can “erupt into usefulness.” 
She wished to preserve a tradition and an ideal from 
which to develop. She knew the grace and the pleasant- 
ness of those old times, and she wished to keep the best 
of them alive. 

Her little School History of North Carolina was a 
failure, and it is interesting to trace why. The reasons 
have been gathered from the book itself, and from a 
pretty exhaustive series of questions and answers—and 
silences. The only rival it had at the time when it was 
written was a most distinguished book—distinguished 
by its utter nullity, but it was in possession of the field. 
Mrs. Spencer wished to supersede this book, but she 
was writing just before the expansion of our historical 
knowledge, just before the printing of the long line of 
volumes of Colonial and State Records. She had to use 
the same sources as her predecessor. 

The very early history of North Carolina has little 
unity of subject. It is at best a troubled confused record 
of many dissensions which are hard to render interesting 
to children. Later come in political changes and recom- 
binations, so many and so hard to state rationally that 
the difficulty becomes even greater. Mrs. Spencer seems 


MRS. SPENCER’S LITERARY TASTES 267 


herself to have felt the great difficulty of her task, for 
she mentions in her journal of this time the continual 
“writing and tearing up” which she was practicing. 
Even though there are picturesque incidents and inter- 
esting narratives to be recounted, a good school history 
of North Carolina is a task at which a good many hands 
have taken their turn. But in telling all this, we must 
not forget to emphasize one fact. This book of hers was 
not published as she wrote it. It was critically edited, 
by whom does not now appear, but that was not all that 
damned it; the reasons come to light by glimpses. 

In that period, thirty-five years ago, conservative 
sentiment at the South was especially interested that 
many by-gones should not be forgotten; or rather in 
their being remembered in a properly composed sort of 
creed. ‘This creed Mrs. Spencer did not respect. She 
revived the ideas of Thomas Jefferson and of Judge 
William Gaston on slavery. She taught that the South 
in the Civil War was not only fighting for their own 
interpretation of the Constitution, but also fighting to 
perpetuate slavery, as an institution, and that slavery 
was wrong. She also reiterated what she had fully 
proved in her Ninety Days, that North Carolina was not 
so heartily urgent in the prosecution of the Civil War as 
some of her neighboring states, and that she was sus- 
pected for this at Richmond. She also indicated that a 
good Republican might possess something corresponding 
to a conscience, might really believe in himself. She her- 
self was a most ardent Democrat, but she saw instances 
of what she was supposing in her brother, Solicitor Phil- 
lips, and in other friends. 

Such things as these simply were not to be said in 
the North Carolina of that epoch; and so this little his- 


268 OLDIDAYS IN CEA TERS 


tory, although infinitely better than the other one, was 
denatured and levelled to please public opinion. It 
pleased nobody, and was superseded. And yet it has 
often been said that men have learned all they could after- 
wards recall of the early history of North Carolina from 
it. And in it she had placed, appropriately, all the poems 
then extant in North Carolina which were of any patri- 
otic value. 

Mrs. Spencer was for a good many years an associate 
editor of the North Carolina Presbyterian, and her 
weekly Young Lady's Column is worth looking over for - 
her religious opinions. The church paper, with its moral 
and religious essays, was a much more essential part of 
life in the seventies than it is now, not because we are 
less ethical, but because more such subjects are treated 
in our magazines and reviews. No one who did not live 
through the experience can know how little there was to 
read in North Carolina then, or how little money there 
was to buy anything new. It is as hard to imagine as is 
a word lighted at night only by candle flame. Into this 
hungry atmosphere Mrs. Spencer’s little essays came 
with great influence and acceptability. 

While rummaging to recover some of this material, 
an elderly elder of her denomination was consulted. He 
said, “Put an advertisement in the Presbyterian Stand- 
ard and you will be likely to recover these articles. Most 
of them are doubtless still in existence, pasted in many 
an old scrap-book, and probably still re-read.” The locat- 
ing of a file of the paper in question made this plan 
unnecessary. 

It is pleasant to note how modern this supposedly 
prim and antiquated Young Lady’s Column of the seven- 
ties shows itself. Not pietistic, not namby-pamby, no 


MRS. SPENCER’S LITERARY TASTES 269 


overstrained feeling expressed; the author sees life 
whole, and sees God in every part of it. Very many of 
these writings touch subjects that many religionists con- 
sider merely secular. She takes up those old themes, of 
youth, and effort, and duty, and self-sacrifice, which are 
ever new themes, always to be re-discussed and re-urged; 
and she founds upon these and on many other often 
treated subjects her less original papers, but she never 
becomes trite. 

In her journal somewhere she says that she exceed- 
ingly covets the gift of making an old subject fresh and 
attractive. She does possess this gift. She can make 
social obligations seem sincerely and fundamentally re- 
ligious, when love for humanity is their reason and love 
for God is their impulse. 

Very varied are her subjects. Early occurs, “How to 
treat the Negroes’’—this just after everybody’s servants 
had become preferred voters. She says: 

I think the very first and prime requisite in dealing with 
the emancipated negro is kindness. I neither mean high 
authoritative kindness nor sloppy good-nature, but pains-tak- 
ing, founded on good feeling towards them. Look at them! 
Humble, simple-hearted and civil. Let us enter into their 
feelings, and try to sympathize with their desire to elevate 
themselves in the scale of humanity. Let us keep the race 
among us. Our negroes are beginning to take a pride in 
showing the white folks that they can support themselves. 
When we think how the negro has been lifted into regions for 
which he was totally unprepared, when we think of him, one 
day a slave, the next day a legislator, urged against his former 
owner; we cannot but wonder that he has done so well as he 
has. The question of Social Equality never troubles my mind. 
People surely find their level. 


“Laughter, Kind and Unkind,” is another sermonette. 
She advocates marriage as good for both men and 


270 OUD DAYS IN CHAPERT TIly 


women, ‘““The best children are found in families where 
the union was equal and suitable.” “How few of our 
marriages do we make ourselves. What sudden turns and 
unexpected incidents change the currents of our lives.” 
“Selfishness is the greatest sin of married life, as well as 
it is of all life. Determine that you will not live wholly 
for yourselves, wholly for a good time.” 

Two succeeding weeks after this she tells in the Col- 
umn two true stories of two different marriages which 
have come into her knowledge, one a romantic account 
of an old-time wooing, where a fine wholesome girl from | 
a country home was brought into a too proud family, 
and altered entirely its barren quality—story enough for 
a whole novel. The next week she tells of an ill-advised 
match where sickness and debauchery made it end in 
despair. | 

Recommending “employment for the girl who is 
through school” she wishes first for good libraries, at 
that time a far-off dream. She says that “Novel-reading 
is not bad in itself, but spoils the taste for better things.”’ 
Then realizing, as she must have done, that there was 
literally nothing to be had to read in the Southern homes 
of that day, except cheap novels and religious books, she 
pays her respects to the Sunday School library of second 
or third rate pious fiction, common at that epoch, and 
adds: 

You can splash about, if you prefer it, in shallow water, 
and take comfort by seeing how many companions you have. 
It is the age of cheap writing. We are not a reading people, 
and that I know well; for rather than be at the trouble or 
expense of providing a plump juicy beefsteak of solid reading, 
parents these days will say, in effect, “Here is some nice slop 


all ready fixed up for you. Take it away and drink it, and don’t 
bother me!”’ 


NRO: SPENCER'S LITERARY. TASTES’ 271 


Her voice is the only cry in that wilderness of intel- 
lectual starvation and barrenness which grew round us 
at that time. How much better if a few had hearkened 
to her recommendations! She begs girls to read and 
commit to memory good English poetry, as a means of 
profitably whiling away the interminable long hot sum- 
mer days of the lonesome South of that time. She advo- 
cates intelligent “nursing the sick.” This before the 
days of trained nurses. “Gardening for flowers, for 
food, and for health” is gone into very fully. Again, 
“Ignorance is the Unpardonable Sin. People do not 
know because they do not want to take the trouble to 
find out.” She advocates a nonsectarian “Home for 
Destitute Gentlewomen,”’ more in demand just then than 
now, but always necessary. 

She writes very fully concerning the need for the 
reunion of the Protestant denominations, split on the 
issues of the Civil War. This was in the early seventies, 
and there they are today, with breaches still unhealed. 
It is mentioned in one of her letters that this article was 
edited and modified by her chief. Her ideas are all 
democratic. She writes a fine delineation of the narrow- 
ing influence of “social sets,” saying that: 


Selection, not exclusion, is the rule of friendship. I do 
not believe that a soul narrowed down into sole sympathy with 
its own set, its little exclusive ving, can be capable of true 
friendship. I do not believe it is ever worthy of a true 
friend. 


This is all moralizing, of course, but interspersed with 
it some religious meditations. One of these, almost a 
random choice, will be given at full length. 


2/2 OLD DAYS IN, CHAPEL HITT 


Its Own BITTERNESS 


We live alone. Even when most surrounded by 
those we love, and in the freest intercourse of social and domes- 
tic life, we are still alone. A thousand thoughts, emotions, 
associations, imaginations, continually spring up and pass away, 
which we tell to none. 

A thousand resolves, speculations, doubts, hopes, fears, 
annoyances, pleasures—we would not impart one tenth of them 
if we could, life is too short—we could not if we would. 

You walk out with your best friend, both freely convers- 
ing with scarcely a moment’s pause—but as you pass along 
fifty different objects may suggest as many different reflections 
of which he knows nothing; and earnestly as you may be 
pursuing the subject of your conversation, quite a different 
set of thoughts is busy within you. It is for the time a double 
existence; the one represented by the visible person, and the 
other, with its secret pangs and struggles, known only to God. 

This inner self is the self, and whether good or bad makes 
the character, is the man. It is this which must be guarded 
from bitterness, falsehood, jealousy, or despondency, if we 
want to be happy, or useful, or good. 

The heart knoweth its own bitterness. While we sit smil- 
ing with our friends it may be filled with scorpions. The keen- 
est vexations and the meanest sins are those we tell to no one. 

Without entering upon what a lively writer calls ‘“‘too close 
an inspection of our moral secretions’ which must inevitably 
lead to despondency and despair of one’s self, and which per- 
haps more than anything else has led to what is called reli- 
gious melancholy, and which has often thrown deeply con- 
scientious people into the arms of the Romish Church for 
anodyne, striving to find it in their doctrines of confession and 
absolution, it will be well to take some note at intervals of 
the habitual current of our thoughts when alone. 

From the force and direction we may judge of our where- 
abouts. “Cleanse Thou me from secret faults’ was King 
David’s prayer, when his heart must have known the full bitter- 
ness of keenest remorse for outbreaking sin. 


MRS. SPENCER’S LITERARY TASTES 273 


Unsuspected, the worst passions may long lie hidden grow- 
ing and strengthening, and in a sudden moment of temptation 
may spring up like a strong man and take possession of us. 
Bitter thought against God may ripen into rank infidelity. 
Bitter judgment of a neighbor may breed gross injustice. Long 
brooding over petty anxieties and selfish vain desires have 
become insanity. ‘“When the mind loses its elastic power of 
changing the current of its thoughts at will, there is insanity.” 

No man can watch his own heart long without a sense of 
amazement and even of terror at the spectacle of its utter hope- 
less weakness, to say nothing of its wickedness. Ever busy, 
now with the past, now with the future, pondering, planning ; 
and even when the soul has been given to God the heart is too 
wandering in its affections, earthly in its aims, conscious of 
its own failures, tasting continually its own bitterness. What 
can be more helpless, or more affecting! .. . 


In these modern introspective days, do not some of 
the inner landscapes described at length in literature 
reveal something quite comparable to this description 
of the secrets of the heart? 

Woman’s Suffrage was then a matter being agitated, 
before it was laid asleep to be awakened and carried to 
a successful enactment in our day. Of course Mrs. Spen- 
cer would have been a sort of monstrosity, would have 
lost what influence she possessed, if in her newspaper 
column she had treated the idea of woman’s political or 
other equality with man with any hospitality whatever. 
This was the conservative South, in the seventies. She 
herself, who was speaking to a greater and a worthier 
audience than perhaps any other person of her time in 
North Carolina, would have felt herself sincerely horri- 
fied at the idea of any woman’s speaking in public. 

In her articles on this subject she proffers all the 
familiar arguments against Suffrage. Then she speaks 


274 OLD DAYSIIN CHAPELIHILI 


of education for women, as discussed at that time, and 
often declared to be too much of a strain on their weaker 
powers, both of body and mind. Just as this point she 
switches suddenly from the opinion then being com- 
monly expressed, and declares, “I have never known any 
young woman to be injured by a good thorough educa- 
tion, nor broken down by any well-chosen course of 
study.” 

Then noting how the refusal of men to allow partici- 
pation of women in common school affairs and educa- 
tional policies generally is driving on the cause of 
Woman Suffrage, she adds, “They will have to take more 
than they need in order to obtain what should be freely 
given to them.” 

In her next week’s issue her sober thought is 
expressed : 


I believe I felt very cross, I was pulled two ways. I must 
confess to being so blind and bigoted that only lately has it 
occurred to me that there might be some good on the other 
side of Woman’s Rights. Only lately have I looked at it dis- 
passionately, and I find that to my disgust the female reformers 
out yonder in Wyoming, or in Chicago, or New York—where 
not, save and except down South—have really an argument or 
two on their side. No use shutting our eyes or closing our 
ears tili the flood is upon us, or I am afraid we shall be all 
swept away. Violent denunciation and contempt are no answer 
to argument. There are surely two sides to this great ques- 
tion. Yes I feel cross! And yet, a house mother—one of 
those quiet women who keep society from going to pieces—lIs 
she not as valuable to the world as a Mme. de Staél?—-Or more 
so?—Still, I feel cross. 


A series of historical columns gives, week by week, a 
good deal of the early history of North Carolina. There 


MRS. SPENCER’S LITERARY TASTES 275 


is a full account of the Regulators, and she says, “I am 
proud that such principles pervaded the humble and the 
illiterate. Their courage was the courage of martyrs. I 
glory that they were poor men.” She asks why there is 
no more interest in research into local historical matters: 


Can anyone in Randolph County point out the farm of 
Herman Husbands, or show the situation of his famous clover 
patch? 

What ever became of Esther Wake or her descendants? 
Write to England, and perhaps you could elicit the name of 
her great-grandfather’s first wife, with all collaterals, up to 
the present. That is the accuracy which characterizes their 
records. 


Every now and then the question came up about the 
true date of the Mecklenburg Declaration of Indepen- 
dence. “Why cannot something definite and conclusive 
be ascertained and settled about that? Whether it was 
the twentieth day of May or some other day of May?” 

Then she extracts with a running commentary an old 
book written by an English traveller through the Caro- 
linas just before the American Revolution; an unfamiliar 
book which she has discovered in the University Library.* 

“From Hillsborough,’ he went on through the 
“Hawfields” to “Salisbury,” ‘“Charlottesburgh” and the 
“Chawraws.” Everywhere pouncing upon the familiar 
names in odd spelling, noticing the man’s account of the 
deep red soil about Hillsborough, and his experience of 
a green persimmon, “austere, rough and astringent to a 
greater degree than any other vegetable substance 
whatever.” 


* This book is A Tour in the United States of America, by J. F. D. 
Smyth. Published in Dublin in 1784. 


2/6 OLD DAYS IN CHAPPED sins 


“Charlottesburgh,” says her traveller, “is an incon- 
siderable place, and in England would be thought not 
deserving of even the name of a village,” then stops to 
describe the costume of the Charlotte bucks and dandies. 
“All the male inhabitants habituate themselves constantly 
to carry along with them everywhere the rifle-barreled 
firelock, and the tomahawk. . . . Their dress is a hunt- 
ing shirt, somewhat like a wagoner’s frock,—ornamented 
with a great many fringes, tied around the middle with 
a great belt. . . . They wear leather breeches of deer- 
skin dressed. . . . Their feet are covered with Indian 
moccasins made of buck’s skin dressed soft, lacing round 
the feet without a seam. Thus habited and accoutered 
he is equipped for visiting, courtship, travel, hunting, or 
war.” 

Whatever this old book might be, it was worth quot- 
ing, to vivify the historical imagination, and must have 
made the Young Lady's Column of the North Carolina 
Presbyterian a pleasant tilt-yard of local controversy, 
for Charlotte was for her own side, before the Revolution 
and after it. Here is the True story of the Real Lady: | 


When I was young I lived in a village where it was the 
custom of the country people to take their produce from house 
to house, wearily walking with baskets of eggs, or fruit, or 
strings of chickens, or buckets of butter, till they could find 
a purchaser. 

One hot summer day, it happened that many such callers 
had been at my door. It is a vexation to get up from draw- 
ing, or sewing, or writing, and descend into the lower regions, 
literally and figuratively! I have settled it in my own mind 
long ago, that I am not a lady; I do not mind confessing it 
here. And not being a lady of course I acted as such, thus: 

The dozenth caller with eggs and chickens that morning, 
walking in upon me, was a comely, kind-faced woman of about 


MRS. SPENCER'S LITERARY TASTES) 277 


thirty, dressed in the conventional North Carolina country- 
woman’s calico sunbonnet, and white woolen mittens. She 
looked weary and flushed, with a basket on either arm. 

Did I ask her to sit down, or offer her a drink, or a fan, 
or even speak gently when I refused to buy? I did none of 
these things. I had been civil to eleven. To the twelfth I 
was uncivil. I remember to this day the tired patient glance 
she gave me as she left the room, silently. 

Two months after that, I was one of a crowd of young 
folks, going to a camp-meeting six miles in the country. Be- 
tween services we strolled about among the tents, as town 
folk will do. Presently we found ourselves at the door of a 
neat and comfortable tent. 

The mistress came smiling out. I recognized her and her 
calico dress at once, and longed to slink out of sight. She 
recognized me too, and coming up she addressed me by name, 
with courtesy and cordiality. There was no mistaking. She 
thus marked me out for especial notice and kindness. That 
July morning two months previous was in both our minds. 
Its effect on her was to make her redouble her simple atten- 
tions. Nothing was too good for the sinner. 

I endured it all, revolving many things in my mind. When 
we parted, I took her hand, and said, ‘““Come and see me.” “IT 
will,’ she answered with a hearty grip, and a pleasant smile, but 
I have never seen her since. 


Finally, she never gives up writing of her constantly 
advocated plans for more education for both sexes to be 
more generously provided by North Carolina. She rings 
the changes on this: 


“Large heart,” says O. W. Holmes, “never loved little 
cream-pot.” Many good women appear to think it is a sinful 
waste to use cream for any purpose whatsoever, save to make 
butter. One must not break the cream on a pan of milk. There 
is not much cream going, in North Carolina. 

Here we live, with all our good climate, and soil. No reason 
why we should not fare as well as any people on the face of the 
globe. We might live on cream if we chose! 


278 OLD DAYS) TN CHAPPED iUeh 


Now I believe in cream. I believe in having the best when 
Providence has put it within our reach. I believe in enjoy- 
ing it after we get it. I call it skin-flint economy that keeps a 
poor scrawny breed of cattle when a little pains and enterprise 
would enrich the country with improved stock. 

A three gallon cow will not eat any more than a three 
pint cow, which is dry half the time. I call it poor economy 
which refuses to grow clover, but turns the poor cows into 
the wood-lands. 

North Carolina has used skim-milk too long. There is no 
cream in our public expenditures. We spend seventy-five 
thousand dollars on building a penitentiary, while we let our 
orphans cry from door to door. This is skim-milk doings. 

We have a State University to be proud of, and we think 
if we give it ten thousand dollars we shall be bankrupt. We 
refuse to endow it. | 

Skim-milk again. We don’t know the taste of cream. We 
think skim-milk is just as good. Let us have more cream. Let 
us hand it round liberally. 

Large heart never loved little cream-pot. 


There was no incentive to a woman to write, in the 
North Carolina of those days. That Mrs. Spencer did 
write so much, and that she kept up her studies as well 
as her writings, shows a great strength of purpose. Her 
modest acquiescence in the lack of comprehension she 
met, her certain knowledge of what she would have been 
capable of, under better conditions, were hard to recon- 
cile, but she went on, stirring when and how she could, 
trying to move her readers and hearers in the direction 
she knew to be desirable. 

Last of this little anthology of forgotten writings, 
we will place a sample of her serious attempts at versifi- 
cation, a part of one of those songs she wrote for college 
occasions, and samples of her translation of her favorite 
Latin, Horace: 


MRS. SPENCER’S LITERARY TASTES 279 


NortH CAROLINA 
Sung to the tune of the Watch on the Rhine 


O Carolina, well we love, 

The murmur of thy dark pine grove, 
Thy yellow sands beside the sea, 

Thy lake beneath the cypress tree. 


Chorus : 
Dear land thy sons salute thee here, 
Their watch for thee shall know no fear, 
On thousand hills our guard shall firmly stand, 
And keep their watch, their watch for thee dear land. 


We love thy stately groves of oak, 

Thy vines, that hang o’er broad Roanoke, 
Thy mountains, from whose rugged steep 
Catawba’s rushing fountains leap. 


Where on the hill the wild bird sings, 

Or jasmine’s golden censer swings, 

Where maidens loitering through the glen 
Hear love’s sweet story told again. 


Where Freedom, Truth, and Peace abound, 
Such men may well call hallowed ground. 
No dearer boon from heaven we crave, 
Than here our home, and here our grave. 


Chorus : 
"Tis our own land, we greet thee here 
From wild Watauga to Cape Fear, 
On thousand hills our guard shall firmly stand 
And keep their watch, their watch for thee dear land. 


Many Men, Many MInps 
Horace, Book 1, Ode 1 


Maecenas, born of royal line, 

Yet guardian dear, and friend of mine, 
Some men prefer th’ arena’s strife 

To every other charm in life; 


280 QED VDA S UNE AD Hi ii 


The very dust from off the wheel, 
That, glowing hot, just clears the goal 
In race Olympic gives them joy; 

The victor’s palm exalts them high 
With gods who rule o’er earth and sky. 


This man, of civic honor proud, 
Delights to hear the fickle crowd 
Thrice raise his name with clamor loud. 


That man with greed surveys his stores 
Just swept from Lybian threshing floors. 


Another loves the joys of home, 

No wealth could tempt his love to roam, 
Content to plough his native plot, 

He shudders at a sailor’s lot. 


The merchant fears the south-west storm, 
Lauds rural life as safe from harm, 

But soon, unwilling to be poor, 

Refits his ships for foreign shore. 


But some there are whom generous wine 
Befools to waste their day’s decline, 
Stretched in the shade where fountains shine. 


Camps delight many, and the note 
Poured from the trumpet’s brazen throat, 
War’s stern array. The clarion clear, 
Hateful to many a mother’s ear. 


The hunter braves the winter rude, 
Deserts his wife and tender brood, 
While on the deer his hounds he sets 
Or marks the wild boar rend his nets. 


But I—if once with ivy crowned, 

Meed of the learned, with gods am found. 
Light-footed nymphs and satyrs rove 
With me apart in solemn grove. 

The muses there will oft retire 


MRS/SPENCER’S LIVERARY LASTES 


To trill their pipe, and tune their lyre. 
Grant me ye powers such lyric praise, 
And ’mong the stars my head I'll raise. 


To His Cup-BEARER 
Book 1—Ode 38 


I hate your Persian pomp and luxuries rare, 

Weave not for me with nimble fingers 

Linden-bound wreaths; nor search the gardens where 
The late rose lingers. 

The myrtle for my banquet I design, 

Simplicity befits us both I’m thinking, 

And graced with myrtle you shall serve the wine, 
While I am drinking. 


281 


XX 
INDIAN SUMMER 


RS. SPENCER was in Chapel Hill the greater 

portion of her time, after the summer of 1882, 
until she went to live in Cambridge permanently in 1894, 
but she also went to Washington City frequently on long 
visits. She had no driving necessity for occupation, liv- 
ing as she did, a boarder in the house of her old friend. 
She seems to have taken great interest in the growth of _ 
the University, to have made friends with all new- 
comers, to have read, walked, sewed, received many 
visits, and lived a life of the most comfortable serenity. 
She always enjoyed sewing for herself and her daughter, 
and to the very last of her life she both sewed and 
embroidered. At this period of her life she revived her 
taste for painting and decorated china, and painted her 
well-loved wild-flowers with truth and exactness. After 
June Spencer had returned from Europe, she was mar- 
ried at the very end of 1885 to James Lee Love of Gas- 
tonia, North Carolina, who was at that time Assistant 
Professor in the Department of Mathematics at the Uni- 
versity. He was to Mrs. Spencer as kind and considerate 
a son-in-law as may be described. There is no one in all 
her circle of relatives and connections of whom she so 
invariably speaks with affection, gratitude and approval, 
as of her son-in-law, in whose home she was to spend the 
last fourteen years of her long life. The letter below 
takes up the series where it was left in the last chapter. 
She is writing a letter which recalls vividly a celebrated 
criminal trial, that of President Garfield’s murderer, 
Guiteau: 


INDIAN SUMMER 283 


October, 1881. 


I wrote you a postal Dearest, while in the court, yesterday, 
sitting and looking on at a great criminal trial. Some of the 
papers are abusing the women for going, but the men are quite 
helpless to resist, and prevent them from getting the best seats. 
We went per favor of the Solicitor General, and had every 
attention. Arriving, we found all doors guarded by policemen, 
and hundreds of men and women besieging in vain for admit- 
tance. We elbowed our way through the crowd. At the doors 
everything gave way to us, and we were let in at once. Those 
left outside quarrelled with the policemen, for letting those 
people in. To which was the reply, those people are official 
people and we are obliged to let them in. 

So we went on triumphantly, being official, from one room 
to another, handed along by obsequious gentlemen. At ten 
o'clock we were taken into the court room and given good seats; 
the marshall giving me, on account of my poor hearing, a 
good place to see everything among the medical experts who 
have been summoned to watch Guiteau, and judge of his insan- 
ity. We staid till the recess at noon, and then elbowed our way 
out, having seen and heard all that we wanted to. The whole 
scene impressed my imagination as the last act of a remark- 
able tragedy. Guiteau is not interesting apart from his crime. 
He has some smartness. Good address. Good easy manners. 
Loses his temper and gets furious however, and seems to care 
for nothing then,—but Oh, what a wild, wasted, friendless- 
looking creature—not a voice or a hand will be raised to save 
him from the gallows. And does he not deserve it? 

Cornie, Nora and I went to the Opera at seven-thirty that 
same night. It was Gerster singing, whom you have heard, 
so I will not tell you anything about La Traviata, in which she 
appeared. 

I was much amused with all I saw. (I could not hear any- 
thing.) I laughed and laughed. The crowd of painted and 
powdered rips, both men and women, the painted passion and 
sentiment. 


In 1883, in Chapel Hill, she and her niece, “Cornie,” 
Samuel Phillips’ oldest daughter, go to look up an old 


284 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


nurse, Miss Sally Williams, who has been living away 
from Chapel Hill ever since those evil days after the war. 


November 1, 1883. 
My DEarREST: 

Cornie and I went and returned from our journey yester- 
day. The storm of Monday had cleared up everything. The 
sky was blue as in June, the sunshine golden, the air delicious. 

We had a nice little one-horse phaeton, and a one-eyed old 
_ negro for driver. We carried a large basket full of things 
to give Miss Sally Williams, besides a good lunch for ourselves. 
We started at seven o’clock, drove to Aunt Dilsey’s, who had a ~ 
couple of broiled chickens and biscuit for us, and away we 
went, quite happy, not knowing at all whither, though our old 
driver seemed confident of finding the way. 

Up hill, down hill, trot—trot—trot! I thought of the little 
story I used to tell you when you were little, of travelling away 
somewhere and stopping along the road as we pleased, only 
this time I did not have my baby along with me. 

We went past Robert Patterson’s, by Mt. Moriah Church. 
The trees were beyond description gorgeous, gums, maples, 
hickories, the road was good, that is, good for Orange County, 
the horse was lively, and we were in tune to enjoy everything. 
We stopped to get “locusses’ [honey locusts] to get haws, to 
pick grapes. As to persimmons, they were too plentiful, we 
disdained ’em! 

We had been advised not to go to Durham, but to go 
straight to Guess’s Mills on the Eno River, between Durham 
and Hillsboro. A mile from the river we met two women 
walking. Asking them if they knew Miss Sally Williams, 
living in that neighborhood, “O yes,” they “knowed her 
mighty well, her and Miss Matilda—they both of ’em was 
dead, died last July.” 

After this neither I nor Cornie felt that the sunshine was as 
bright as before: We went on, crossed the Eno at the mills, 
beautiful place, large dam, noble rocks, and hills all glowing 
with color. A mile beyond we found the house, as described. 


INDIAN SUMMER 285 


An old woman, some dogs, and some children came out. We 
went in and announced ourselves, and our purpose. 

The old woman was Miss Sally’s sister Annis, living now 
with her daughter who married twelve years ago. Annis 
used to come to Chapel Hill in the old days, knew us all, and 
loved us. Cornie remembered her, and she Cornie. 

So we sat down among the dogs and children and heard 
the short and simple annals of Miss Sallie and Miss Matilda, 
and their last days. Miss Matilda fell dead, with no warning, 
from her chair, July 19, and Miss Sally who had been poorly, 
though with no especial disease that Miss Annis knew of, “just 
wilted right off,’ and died ten days later. And when they went 
to dress her for the grave, they found what no human being of 
them had even suspected, so well had she kept the dismal 
secret, Miss Sally had a dreadful “eating cancer’’ in her breast, 
said Annis, “‘as black as your dress, Mrs. Spencer. The doctor 
said, from the looks of it, it must have been three or four years 
old, and she had hid it, and dressed it herself alone.” 

She had gone on uncomplaining all those years, nursing 
the sick, doing just what she had always done. No hint of the 
fire that was burning into herself. We knew Miss Sally was 
a woman of great resolution, but would hardly have thought 
her capable of this. 

Her sister, who talked very well, said it would have pre- 
vented her from being employed as a nurse if people had 
known. She dressed herself to within three days of her death, 
and when the fever came on and she was delirious she kept 
reason enough to charge her sister “not to unpin my under- 
body whatever you do.’ So they let her alone. After her 
death of course they went to put clean clothes on her, and found 
this awful thing, all primed up with plaster. In her trunk 
they found the old linen, and the medicines and ointments that 
she had used. Poor Miss Sally! What a story. 

We sat about an hour and a half, and heard all they could 
tell us, and told them all about the Chapel Hill people. It was 
all abundantly affecting to Cornie and me, as you must admit 
would be natural. We gave Annis the coffee and sugar, tea and 


286 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


flannel, and a nice tea pot I was carrying to Miss Sally; and 
after kind parting words came away. 

Miss Sally and her sisters had lived in a large house across 
the road, but it was shut up. Miss Annis said she could not 
bear to go into it after those two deaths. They appeared to be 
comfortably well off. Have good mules, a good barn, a colored 
woman living with them. Comfortable but sluttish, North 
Carolina like. So we came home. We ate our lunch after 
we started. It was about sixteen miles distant, we took four 
hours to go, and four to return. What strikes me is that at 
such a trifling distance there should be so little intercommuni- 
cation. They had heard nothing about Chapel Hill, and we 
had heard nothing of them. : 


In 1884 we find a letter to her daughter, who has 
just announced to her mother her decision in favor of 
the man she eventually married: 


CHAPEL Hitt, January 22, 1884. 
DEAREST: 

Sitting alone and thinking, thinking, turning everything 
over in my mind connected with you, and having no one with 
whom to share my thoughts, it is no wonder I want to write 
to you, and so begin this letter. 

I am thinking this morning that it is a pity that girls are 
not perfect. Their lovers think they are, of course, but we 
know they are not. When one sees a strong man on his knees 
so to speak before a tender unformed girl, placing all his hopes 
for life’s good upon her love and truth, idealizing and idoliz- 
ing, I say it is a pity she is not all he thinks she is. There is a_ 
great deal of unconscious deception in the first flood tide of a 
newly awakened love. Both parties really do appear exalted, 
bettered, transformed, as if in a new state of existence. 

Of course this cannot last. The illumination ceases, and 
people appear once more as they really are. Then if a woman 
is not really truthful, sincere, modest, good-tempered, unselfish, 
industrious, sensible, it will all come out. Sometimes when I 
think of all that has been staked upon you I am frightened, 
when I think of what you are staking on him it appals me. 


INDIAN SUMMER 287 


Sometimes I want to advise you, and then I say, if in all these 
years she has not become so, and so, she cannot now. It 
would be only a putting on, an affectation. I believe she will 
show the same prudence, self-control, delicacy and generosity 
I have noticed in her all her life. It is a good thing to have the 
first, and undivided love of a good man. How do women dare 
to trifle with such a thing as they do very often! You see how 
very thoughtful the letter you wrote me last night has made me. 
Are you not glad that none of your old lovers can call up a 
blush to your cheek? You have nothing to wish unsaid or 
undone with regard to any of them. .. . 

I have always imagined a marriage for you with a man 
already settled and a house ready, and instead you have gone 
and done the very thing I did not want you to do—engaged 
yourself to a college man with nothing particular in view. But 
why should I regret that your entrance on the serious duties 
of life is delayed for several years. You will be at work, 
you will not sit idle. I have just received your letter with 
all your impatiences, your hopes and fears. 

If you decide to go to London when Professor Winston 
goes I shall go to New York and see you off, and then spend 
your absence in Washington, with the kin. 


The journey to Europe was over, and in December 
of 1885 Miss June’s wedding cake was made at Aunt 
Dilsey’s cabin, according to old agreement, and all went 
“merry as a marriage bell.”” There are full accounts of 
the wedding and all about it. In March, 1886, a few 
months after, we find a page of the journal devoted to a 
description, item by item, of that quiet but pleasant life 
she led for a few years while her daughter and son-in- 
law were both with her, before they removed thence to 
Cambridge, Massachusetts. 


I think it is a duty to put on record this halcyon calm, my 
daughter happily married, and living in the same house with 
me, under circumstances of comfort. Our situation here with 
my amiable Mrs. Thompson is certainly the best that Chapel 


288 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


Hill affords. Yesterday, March 6, 1886, was just like every 
other day, and I spent it thus. Up at seven, dress leisurely, 
open the door for my cat Bob to come in. Breakfast at seven- 
thirty. Mr. Love hurrying to be in time-for college. June 
going to the door to see him off. Both so happy. All so 
amiable and cheerful. I sit down to my sewing, thinking of 
poor dear sister Fanny, gone now three years. Dinner and after- 
wards June comes in with her work, to sit with me. Different 
friends call. . . . June and her husband go to walk. 

After supper I read David Copperfield aloud to them for an 
hour, June with her work, and then I go downstairs to my 
room, as I do when no company or engagement is expected. 
Often I sit by my fire, reading till late, wake next morning in- 
perfect peace, to another quiet day of employment and com- 
fort, a life of uneventful ease and peace. | 


And this peace continues for several years longer in 
the home built by the daughter and her husband. A tiny 
slip drops out of some old pocket record, saying, ‘““Wed- 
nesday, February 29, 1888. June, Lee and I went to the 
Mineral Spring this afternoon. Picked some dog-tooth 
violets on the hill beyond the long bridge. A happy day.” 
But there are letters of this particular period which are 
worth reading. 


CHAPEL Hii, September 15, 1884. 
DEAR BROTHER SAM: 

This is a fine bright cool fall morning. A fire would be 
comfortable, but failing the fire I have a shawl round me, wait- 
ing for breakfast. We have had a cool summer, hardly a case 
of illness and not one death, though I recall very few deaths in 
our circle of friends and neighbors for ten years past. The 
population of this place is changing however, and has changed 
wonderfully. A visit to one of the churches of a Sunday morn- 
ing will show this. In the Methodist Church not long ago I 
could see but four or five faces that were familiar. Poor old 
Jones Watson looking up at the preacher with dim bleared eyes. 
He is completely severed from this new day. He and John 


INDIAN SUMMER 289 


and the Carrs, Mrs. Barbee, and F. Utley, Mrs. Jennings, 
theirs are all the ante bellum faces. 

At the Baptist church it is still more strange, at the Epis- 
copal, the Malletts and Miss Mary Smith are all. 

We had a political meeting, a speaking here on Saturday. 
Cox, Ransom, Graham, Bunn, etc. Ransom called to see me, 
and said there were not six people on the ground whom he 
knew when in college. I was one of the few. I took Cornie 
and Fan and Minnie and went and sat under Mr. Hargrave’s 
largest oak tree, and was much amused surveying the crowd. 
squire Johnston was out in a new suit, playing the candi- 
date. Senator Ransom dealt out chunks of taffy all round 
during his stay. I absorbed and assimilated my share without 
any difficulty. He paid you a very handsome tribute of respect 
and liking during his speech, as the “North Carolinian best 
known and most respected in Washington, standing higher 
- professionally than any other ever sent there,” etc. He told 
me that night that he “loved Sam Phillips.” He spoke of 
John Pool with forbearance and pity. All this is pleasant, 
even though we may be certified that it is only Ransom’s 
Wayeia ie 
The crowd was but small, even with the students to swell 
it. JI asked why so few ever came to a Chapel Hill political 
meeting. Mr. Hoot Patterson said it was because no liquor 
could be had here. “They will go by hundreds to Hillsboro’ 
or Durham,—Chapel Hill is too dry.” 

I went driving with Charles and Cornie the other day. I 
saw the “Old Mrs. Strain Place” on the old Hillsboro’ Road 
for the first time in thirty-three or four years. I have not 
seen the ““Huccabee Place” since the winter of fifty-one-fifty- 
two. You perceive by this that I am not locomotive. It is a 
sort of inertness that possesses me. 

I had a visit from Bettie Williams the other day. She mar- 
ried this summer a nephew of our friends Henry and Marma- 
duke Williams, a respectable man who owns a well stocked two- 
horse farm. She told me his name was ‘Levi’ and added, 
“but people don’t call him that. He’s got another name. They 
call him Woodbury which a’nt any name at all to my mind.” 


290 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


The man is forty years old at least, and his name is a hint 
of old political times—Levi Woodbury and his associations and 
enterprises are gone as completely as those of ‘“Tidal King of 
Nations.”’ Who thinks of them, except in this way, as one 
recalls extinct animals—say the Dodo! 

And O, the next world to which we are all hurrying— 
Where is it? and what shall we do there? Anything of more 
permanence than here? And what shall we know and remem- 
ber? Such queries are often in my mind these days, and there 
are times when I would like to go and begin that new life, 
and, it may be, join the members of our life’s party who have 
preceded ‘us thither.) 

Cornie is the only one of your children who is really smit 
with the secret charm of woods and fields. She is constant, and 
always ready to go. To have on always a good loose and easy 
shoe, and never to be too much laced up, are great assistants 
to this sort of constancy. I have been there myself. The old 
“White Place,” Mrs. Swain’s old home in Raleigh, is adver- 
tised for sale. ‘None abiding!” 

Very affectionately, your Sister, 


OR sere so 


The next letter is written to Mrs. Charles W. John-: 
ston, whose husband is the Esquire Johnston mentioned 
in the foregoing. She was a friend of whom Mrs. Spencer 
said, on one occasion, “As long as she is in Orange 
County, there is something there to tie to; she rests my 
soul.” Mrs. Johnston still lives some miles from Chapel 
Hill, and in the country, then as now. 


WASHINGTON City, January, 1885. 
My Dear AGNEs: 


I did not know whether to laugh or cry and be vexed when 
Susie Thompson wrote that a letter having arrived at their 
house for me from you, together with some fine apples, they 
had kept the apples to eat, and returned the letter to you. I 
did not begrudge the apples to them, but I was vexed at the 


INDIAN SUMMER 291 


sending your letter back. I would have been so glad of it. 
‘It would have been like a farewell from you. 

I was very glad to receive your wedding-day letter... 
glad to think you associated me with the day. In your calendar 
it comes as a day to be thankful on, thankful for a kind and 
loving husband, promising children, and a comfortable peace- 
ful, plentiful home. I had not thought of its being so long 
since that mild grey January day, when for the first time since 
old Esquire Johnston’s own marriage, sixty years before, a 
bride was brought to the old Johnston Homestead... . 

Are you using your new dining room this winter? I hope 
it is to add greatly to your comfort. . . . Here we are well 
enough, but like you complaining of the weather. I have kept 
myself tolerably close and try to busy myself first with sewing, 
next with reading, and finally with letter-writing. I have over- 
hauled all June’s things. You know I have never relinquished 
the pleasure of making her underclothes for her. 

We all spent the morning at the windows of Brother Sam’s 
office on Pennsylvania Avenue last Saturday, looking at the 
long procession, the Monument dedication. Lots and lots of 
soldiers, sailors, tinkers, tailors, Free Masons, Cadets, orders, 
brass bands, flags and banners; finishing up with President 
Arthur, Mr. Corcoran, Mr. Bancroft, and other Washington 
City grandees and notabilities. And at night we had a fine 
view of the fireworks round the Monument, from my bed- 
room windows which overlook the city and the Potomac River 
with the Virginia shores in the distance. 

The girls had a dinner-party that evening. Would you like 
to know what they call a good dinner? They had soup, 
oysters, roast turkey, steak, asparagus, green peas, macaroni, 
potatoes, celery, cranberries, pickles, and relishes. For dessert 
rainbow ice-cream, lemon ice, chocolate cream, mince pie, 
macaroons, French bon-bons, oranges, grapes, winding up with 
splendid coffee, black as ink. 

Brother Sam still occupies his wife’s room, where all things 
remain just as she left them. But I notice that the girls never 
go into it, yet they all talk of her freely, and keep alive the idea 
of her among them. 


BAS a OLD DAYS TINGCHARN EL Tht 


But what human sentiment survives in any force after two 
years of death? It is no doubt the mercy of God that time 
should invariably steal away the sharpness of all bereavement. 
My poor Mr. and Mrs. Mason are an instance of how the 
broken heart can live on, and find something to live for. 

I had a good letter from them, not long ago. They write 
of their two dead girls, but are submissive, even cheerful. 
I had a letter since I came to Washington from . I was 
surprised and much pleased. Her letters do her credit, sup- 
posing her to be quite sincere. She is, is she not? Without that 
element, sincerity, I cannot take any stock in a person. 

Give that element of truth a foremost place, dear Agnes, 
in the forming your children’s character. As they grow older, 
you will find there is no comfort like that! 

Mrs. Charles Phillips keeps writing to me, “When are you 
coming home?’ I am not able to say, I suppose I shall see 
the Democratic President inaugurated. Wonderful is it not? 
Dear Agnes, write to me again. Give my love to Mr. Johnston 
and the children. 


Next is a letter to her brother, describing the inaugu- 
ration of President Cleveland. 


SOLICITOR GENERAL’S OFFICE, 
WASHINGTON City, March 4, 1885. 


DEAR CHARLES: 


A wonderful day! wonderful spectacle,—yet I enjoy it 
only by half. I long for you and Laura to be here. They say 
Washington City never saw anything like the crowd, the dis- 
play, the excitement. Brother Sam keeps saying to me, “Mag- 
nificent, isn’t it?’ and I nod assent. 

We all came down here directly after breakfast—fine place 
to see everything, but I cannot describe the show. The multi- 
tudes oppress me. The day is perfect, *T'would be too warm 
if the sun shone very bright, but the slight misty veil over 
everything makes it perfect. 

I am always glad for the people when the weather is good. 
The show, the troops, the marching, the music, the fine horses 
and equipages! Cleveland, Arthur, Ransom and Sherman in 


INDIAN SUMMER 2o5 


such a gorgeous vehicle! Such cheering and waving of hand- 
kerchiefs, such glory. The public buildings are a mass of 
flags; the streets, stands, balconies, windows, roofs, every pos- 
sible spot to hold on by, or where a seat could be constructed, 
is black with crowds. And everybody is in good humor, every- 
body is well dressed and orderly. The civil display is as im- 
pressive as the military. It befits a great nation of freemen. 
It fills one’s imagination completely. 

The one drawback is that to our good brother all this means 
defeat, dispossession. This handsome apartment will know 
him no more as proprietor. His future is all uncertain, yet 
as Mrs. M says, ““Doesn’t he take it beautifully?’ Yes he 
certainly does. Doing the honors as gaily and cheerfully this 
minute—dear old fellow. He has provided an elegant lunch 
here for the party. 

I wish I had a small kingdom to bestow upon him this 
afternoon! Yesterday, June, Cornie and I walked to the 
Capitol. The Avenue was a jam—slowly we moved along. 
The elements of the throng were evidently of great respecta- 
bility. At the Capitol every hall, passage, staircase, presented 
a moving mass of humanity. We made our way into the 
President’s room, where Arthur sits all night the last night or 
two, signing bills. As we rested on the red morocco sofa, in 
came Senator Ransom. He came over and sat down by us. 
I introduced my daughter, with great pride, and Ransom im- 
mediately gave her piles of taffy about her mother. 

The views from the balconies and windows of the Capitol 
are just glorious, the air slightly smoky, as today. The winds 
were west for once in Washington City. 

We sat in the Senate Gallery, and then in the House for 
a while, and then went slowly home. I had seen so much I 
did not want to come out today, but I was overruled, and here 
I am scribbling to you, with the room filled with ladies and 
gentlemen going and coming. 

Last night a gentleman called on Mrs. Spencer and declined 
to send up his name, saying he wanted to see if I would know 
him. I went down, and luckily guessed Hannis Taylor. It 
was he. I had had a letter from him in the winter, saying he 


294 OLD DAYS'IN CHAPEL HILL 


wanted to be here on March fourth. We had a very pleasant 
talk, and then I went up and sent Brother Sam down, and he 
invited Taylor to dinner on Friday, so I shall see him again. 
He appears very well. | 

Sam got a letter from you which we two enjoyed as we 
read it, in the middle of the hurly burly. Yes it is something 
to be thankful for, that when so many reputations have made 
shipwreck, our dear good brother lays his office down with 
only increased honor and reputation. 

Senator Ransom told us yesterday that there were a great 
many North Carolinians in the City. I have not seen one. 
The faces, O the faces! 

It is like walking in a dream! Presently the grand pro- 
cession which is to form at the Capitol will come this way. 
Cleveland is to review the troops from a grand stand erected 
in) frontietithe White, Pousenin si! 

Four o’clock.—Have been staring steadily for more than 
three hours at the procession—and still they come, never end- 
ing, troops upon troops, file after file... . It has been the 
grandest show I ever beheld. The soldiers made a splendid dis- 
play, and when Fitzhugh Lee rode along at the head of the Vir- 
ginia boys—such cheering! It was the only general popular 
outbreak. Lee brought several colored regiments with him 
from Virginia. He said nothing would tranquillize the negroes 
more successfully. 

I must stop. Have written this in such intervals as could 
be snatched. 

Affectionately Your Sister, 
CD 


Perhaps the most celebrated of all Mrs. Spencer’s 
friends from a purely literary standpoint was Hannis 
Taylor, whom she had taught during the Civil War at 
Chapel Hill, where his family were refugees. He was 
Judge Taylor of Savannah when he called upon her in 
Washington. Letters from him are among her papers. 
He sends her later a full account of his forth-coming 
book which bears the same relation to the English Con- 


INDIAN SUMMER 295 


stitution as Lord Bryce’s does to that of the United 
States. He says: 


If my book succeeds I shall expect you most of all to be 
proud of it. Take a leisure hour and tell me all about your 
dear self, all about Chapel Hill. If I bear fruit, and I may, 
I shall give you credit. After an absence of more than twenty 
years, I cling to the associations of my youth with a tenacity 
and affection which surprises me. With your dear daughter 
married and within a stone’s throw of you, and with your 
older love, the University, entering upon a second youth 
under your eyes, you should be very happy, and you deserve 
to be. Why don’t I come to see you? I have resolved never to 
go back, unless I go as a man of high distinction. Do you live 
in the old home? Is the old bench still there, upon which “Pa” 
and yourself and Governor Swain used to sit together ? 


In a later letter, Hannis Taylor says to Mrs. Spencer 
that if anything in his book is the least bit unclear to her 
mind, that passage is defective, and must be revised. 
When the Normal School for girls was established in 
Greensboro the credit of sowing the seed which had thus 
flowered was duly given to her name, and in 1910 it was 
her old pupil Hannis Taylor who made the eulogy when 
her portrait was presented to the school, to be placed in 
the building named for her. He called her the “Typical 
American Woman” in this address. | 

On the first of January, 1886, the old Swain-Caldwell 
mansion in Chapel Hill was totally destroyed by fire, thus 
changing the whole outlook on Mrs. Spencer’s familiar 
street. 

In January, 1887, Mrs. Spencer began a school his- 
tory of North Carolina, which she brought to an end 
the following year. It was duly published, and there are 
letters to her about it, preserved, but it was not as vital 


296 OLD (DAYS IN: CHAPEE HiIl: 


a matter to her as the beginning of changes in her peace- 
ful life of the decade just past. 

January 1, 1888, she records the death of her old 
friend, Mrs. Ellen Mitchell Summerell, to whom several 
of these letters were written. “I look out this night, and 
think how the moonlight lies also on her grave.”’ 

In July of the same year died “Cornie,” daughter of 
her Brother Sam, and her namesake and prime favorite. 
A little later she writes ‘“The University is not prosper- 
ing, and that weighs on my heart.”’ 

April 17, 1889. 

Brother Charles and Sister Laura have come to the decision 
to do as their children wish, and break up their home here, give 
up all semblance of independence and go to live with their 
sons at Birmingham, Alabama. I have fought against the idea 
in vain. I think it a most injudicious thing for two persons at 
their time of life, but all their children advise it, urge it. 3 

I shall never see Charles again, I feel sure. Laura may 
return, but Charles, never. My good kind generous hearted 
brother Charles, I shall see him no more on earth, after this 
farewell! 


Charles Phillips, Mrs. Spencer’s eldest brother, was 
a man of parts, well known and appreciated, but the last 
half of his life had been ground up under the disintegra- 
tion of his often recurring illnesses, so that he never 
accomplished the half of what he was clearly capable of 
doing. His disorder was rheumatic gout. He was a 
preacher, powerful and practical. He and his wife, in 
his Chapel Hill days of the first period, undertook some 
of the most neglected religious work. They conducted a 
Sunday School for the negroes. After the break-up of 
1868 he was seized upon eagerly by Davidson, where he 
remained till the University was reopened. The call of 
Chapel Hill was the stronger, and he came home again, 


INDIAN SUMMER : 297 


where he worked for awhile between the attacks per- 
sistently recurring until his health gave way completely. 
He was an invalid confined to a rolling chair for eleven 
years before his death, in 1889. Frustration of a life is 
one of those tragic developments which make us pause © 
and revise our current values in achievement. Dr. 
Charles Phillips was thus taken from his activities, 
teaching and preaching, and limited to one subject, and 
one text: patience. 

Mrs. Spencer says of him that he was so utterly 
patient that it broke her heart, so resolutely patient that 
he could never have been in his heart resigned. But he 
was cheerful. Everyone visited him as he sat helpless. He 
grew broadly tolerant and mellow as he grew older. He 
taught a student Bible class. He assisted in the compiling 
of the Alumni Catalogue, he kept up his friendships. The 
visitor to Chapel Hill, especially if an old student, called 
on Dr. Phillips who always had time to talk over all the 
old stories, and who would be sure to recall them. The 
negroes whom he had always befriended and understood 
would often come to him with their long histories. The 
sorrowing came to the side of his chair for comfort. His 
children grew up worthy about him, but he must often 
have said to his own heart, that the race was not to the 
swiit. He and his wife left Chapel Hill on April 29, 
1889, and seemed to reach Columbia, South Carolina, in 
fairly good trim, but he never rose from his bed after 
he lay down upon it. He died after ten days of excru- 
ciating agony. 

From a letter to Miss Margaret Mitchell: 

Chapel Hill opened her bosom to receive him back once 
more. He was the most living one of us three, the brightest, 


NIGVO OOT ALNNOOD AONVAUO NV 


INDIAN SUMMER Zo), 


the strongest, the most vivid, most interested, most sympathetic. 
It is wonderful to think of the position he held in spite of his 
infirmities. To the last he was the center of us. . . . He said 
in his last postal to me, written on his last journey, “I did not 
sleep. I lay awake and watched the stars. I have not seen 
them in a long time.” 


The year before her own death she records: 


I always loved that bit of horizon on which Brother Charles’ 
eyes rested, summer evenings on his piazza, for so many years. 
I thank God every day when I can see a pine tree against the 
sky. I seem to see that one lifting its head, on Battle’s Brook, 
across the valley, eastward. 

November 6, 1889—Brother Sam married his second wife 
today. I believe this second marriage will secure his happiness 
and comfort in his latest years. 

Christmas, 1889—Lee is gone to Cambridge, Massachu- 
setts. June and I are alone in the house, comfortable, not 
unhappy. 

June, 1890—Lee has returned after an absence of nine 
months precisely. Now I must get myself ready for the in- 
-evitable, June’s departure in. September. 

January, 1891—Christmas and New Year I spent alone. 
June and Lee are comfortably and happily situated in Cam- 
bridge. My winter is passing in great peace. My health is 
perfect. 

January 8, 1891—My dear friend Mr. Paul Cameron was 
buried today. | 


Hereabout there begin to come notices about the fail- 
ing of Aunt Dilsey, who was as valued a friend as any. 


Dilsey sent for me last Saturday. Said she was “mighty 
poorly.’”’ I think she was as usual, but was tired of corn bread 
and buttermilk as a diet. I sent her a new calico dress, some 
flour and other things. She is better. Whenever she gets 
“outdone” with everything she sends for me. 


300 OLD DAYS (IN CHAREL VEIL: 


A few days later: 


Aunt Dilsey was better today, very cheerful and uppish. 
She says she “‘studies on you children all the time.” 


No more entries till 1894, when, on May 25, occurred 
Aunt Dilsey’s death. 


Our dear old Aunt Dilsey, faithful servant in our family 
for about sixty years. I suppose her to have been about 92 or 
93 years old. In face and person she bore the appearance of 
extreme old age. She died after a tedious illness, in full pos- 
session of her senses, her characteristic good nature, good 
sense, dignity, loyalty, and unshaken faith in her Redeemer. 
She was Chapel Hill’s oldest inhabitant at the time of her death. 

At the surrender Aunt Dilsey refused to use her liberty, but 
remained with her ‘‘Old Master’ till his death. She said, she 
went “straight on ’tending to her business.” 

She was twelve years old when the Old South Building was 
being erected, and liked to tell that she had turned the grind- 
stone on which the workmen sharpened their tools. 

Like others of her race, she dwelt fondly on old times. 
The rising generation will never know the sweetness of the 
attachment that exists between an old servant and the family to 
whom the loyal service was given, an attachment lasting to the 
third and fourth generation. 


The death of this old servant was the loosening of 
the last tie that held Mrs. Spencer away from the abode 
of her daughter, where a little grand-daughter was 
awaiting her. It was the natural place for her to go, 
at her age; nothing was left which needed her in 
Chapel Hill. 


XXI 
GOING DOWN THE VALLEY, ONE BY ONE 


N THE faithfully told story of any significant and 
long continued lifetime, there comes in toward the 
last a deep undercurrent of tragic feeling. Very few 
who read sympathetically the account of a memorable 
life of this kind are insensible to the temptation of turn- 
ing back to the opening pages to escape the downward 
drift of the closing ones. They compare the toils of the 
seed-time with the hurried joys of harvest. They must 
read of later days when there is no pleasure left in them, 
and ask themselves, “Is this really the end?” 

Mrs. Spencer was in her seventieth year when she 
finally left Chapel Hill. The suddenness of her depar- 
ture came as a shock to her whole state, for while, as 
she said, she had been for some time “drifting out of 
sight of the students gradually,” yet she was to the young 
a tradition and a figure surviving from the old days of 
the giants, and no older person could bear to think of 
Chapel Hill without its patron saint. It was, however, 
a very simple matter. She knew she was growing old. She 
had already planned to move away in the autumn and join 
her daughter in Cambridge. She now found that she 
needed surgery tor a dangerous growth in her breast. Of 
this she told not one soul in North Carolina, but hastened 
away in late June, 1894. Her cure was complete and 
permanent, but she never went back to Chapel Hill. 

The University which she had revived from its deadly 
swoon so far relaxed its disapproval of too great for- 
wardness in woman as to bestow upon her at the 


302 OLD DANS IN ORAREU Etat 


next Commencement the honorary degree of LL.D. in 
absentia, 

The summer of 1895 found her with her relatives in 
New Jersey, and joining her beloved “Sister Laura” at 
her brother’s in Washington, but she was now three 
score and ten, and stone deaf. She could no longer go 
about city streets alone. Her mind took a late growth 
for these years. Her diaries became more full and de- 
tailed after she went to Cambridge, for they were her 
confidante. These are full of interest and comment upon 
the thought of that vivid center in which she now found 
herself, although she felt a keen distrust of the natural- 
istic trend of some of it. She read eagerly after the 
writings of those men who were at that time making 
Harvard famous. She must have seen them at times, a 
few she knew, but age and deafness, and her own desire 
to be unnoticed and not too much waited upon, kept her 
from being actively a part of the Cambridge society of 
the day. 

The Harvard Library held infinitely more sustaining 
abundance than the little collections down in North 
Carolina. Always a great reader, she could obtain any- 
thing she now desired, and her diaries record how many 
and varied were her interests. She could also pursue 
her love of English biography, and appraise her favorite 
Englishmen of the governing class by the words of all 
their contemporaries. She manifests a suspicion of her 
own rational departures from the beliefs of her youth, 
and feels each new decision of her own strong mind as 
almost a treachery to her old self, and yet she cannot 


help broadening her views very materially so late in her 
life. 


GOING DOWN THE VALLEY 303 


And she was appreciated outside her home. How 
often these latest letters refer to the many flowers and 
books “June’s indefatigable friends” lavish upon her at 
every anniversary. She probably might easily have been 
esteemed at her true worth, and as it is there was an 
instinctive recognition of her as a remarkable personage, 
as was shown in the fifty or more letters written to her 
daughter by New England friends after her death. 

Like an uprooted tree as she was, she had not lost 
her intimate interest in the things of her old home. If 
any people from North Carolina chanced to come to 
Boston, a pilgrimage to Cambridge to see Mrs. Spencer 
came to them as naturally as homing bees. Hundreds 
of old friends must have done this. And she had one 
old friend living in Boston a part of this time. This 
was Walter H. Page, at that time editor of the Atlantic 
Monthly. He was to her one of her own folks, and she 
saw him and his family from time to time, rejoiced in 
his successes, and interpreted him aright. Once she 
records that he made her a visit on his birthday, and “I 
kissed him for his Mother.” 

All these years she writes letters, letters, to all the 
throng she loved. These are tinctured with some sadness 
of exile, and a sense of finality, but are patient withal, 
and show no waning of love or of keen interest. Mrs. 
Spencer had a certain broad human sense of humor. 
She loved simple people and somewhat elemental jokes. 
This quality of hers was quite apparent personally in 
her, although it is not so apparent in her writings. It 
was a part of her broad sympathy with life and her keen 
interest in all that composes it. This was probably what 
gave her such great appreciation from those who were 


304 OLD DAY SIN CHAPEL TET 


by no means her equals, for everybody claimed an inter- 
est in Mrs. Spencer, claimed it and received it. 

This trait belonged to all her family also. It made 
for kindly judgment and charity. The atmosphere of 
New England was just a little rarified and over-strained 
for her conceptions. She continually harks back to odd 
warped characters known long ago, events trivial by all 
counts, but perennially interesting to her because a part 
of the panorama of her early life. Anybody who could 
claim a connection or a relationship to any of this storied 
past of hers was by that fact become of the deepest in-. 
terest to her, and as these contacts died out, one by one, 
a part of her own soul seemed to flicker out with them. 
There was no indifference, no manifestation of the stupid 
acceptance of the inevitable that besets some old folk like 
a paralysis. Mrs. Spencer was definite, and gamely 
determined to express herself to the very last. Her com- 
ments never lack that energy or that salty wit that made 
her little sayings memorable. A few of her last letters 
show all these things, although as she herself said, “Get- 
ting old, in this day and time, is but a silly business!’ 

The next letter is to Charles Phillips’ second daugh- 
ter, Mrs. Lucy P. Russell, of Rockingham, North 
Carolina: 

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., April 14, 1902. 
Dear Lucy: 


Thanks for the unlooked-for letter, for I was in your debt. 
I too had been planning to write, and I too had been delaying 
with some faint hope of a more cheerful state of mind. 

I enjoyed your letter. You have the same turn of mind 
that your Auntie is gifted with. I too am in the spirit when 
spring returns; always have been. Perhaps the month of 
March has something to do with the annual introspection, 
the living again of life’s farewells, musing, brooding over days, 


GOING DOWN THE VALLEY 305 


scenes, woods, faces long long ago passed. Why should one 
scene more than another, one word more than another, spoken, 
brand itself upon one’s memory when many others more worthy 
of remembrance are faded and forgotten. I recall with spring- 
ing tears that brief interview with Mr. and Mrs. Mason as we 
walked out of that rude old graveyard (after the burial of 
Brother Charles), and I also recall a word or two from him, as 
I recall Susie’s cry of anguish the day he was finally driven 
away from his old home. Oh Lucy, what pain his last look 
recalls to me! 

Perhaps it is wrong, foolish, certainly it is unavailing to 
indulge such memories. It is like pressing a dead rose’s stalk 
to one’s breast till you can feel the thorn pierce again. Still, 
I would not be J if I lost the habit. 

Over my mantel hang the photos of my father and my two 
brothers. I often put down my book or work and accost them. 
“Yes, Charles, you were right. Sins are forgiven, but not 
folly.” Or I appeal to my dear old Father. 

“And if thou wilt, remember, and if thou wilt, forget.” 
I choose to remember, sad though it be. I am glad your boy 
is at Chapel Hill. I hope, I do hope he will retain through a 
long honorable and successful life a love for the hills and 
groves and sweet recollections of his college days. Tell him 
this, to keep himself clean and pure if he wants to recall this 
time with pleasure. Keep out of scrapes, out of bad company, 
away from haunts of evil. Urge this upon your boy! 

_ Can you realize that your Aunt Fanny has been dead nine- 
teen years next Monday? And in those nineteen years, how 
much has happened to us all. I suppose myself to be the same 
person I was then, but I do not feel to be. 

I think the close of your Uncle Sam’s active life, his retire- 
ment, is peculiarly melancholy. His crippled condition, and 
the death of his good wife. I do not speculate upon his future. 
Most of what his second wife had must return at her death to 
her first husband’s family. When she was here five years ago 
she told me laughingly that she had been angry with Sam for 
taking a five-year lease of their house. “It looks like assuming 
that we shall live five years.” The lease is just out now. It 


306 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILDU 


lasted her term of life. She was good, sensible, prudent, and 
pious. Brother Sam writes beautifully of her. Nothing could 
have prolonged her life, as her family physician told Brother 
Sam after her death. Sam had not seen her in a fortnight till 
he was carried into her room to see her die. Miss Mollie 
writes me that he held her hand, and spoke to her repeatedly, 
but if she made any sign in response it was very faint. When 
the last breath ended he placed his trembling hand on her fore- 
head, and with tender solemnity commended the departing 
spirit to the mercy of God, in Christ. Such a pathetic scene! 

I shall always think of the second Mrs. S. F. Phillips with 
respect and affection. 

Dear child, I understand the longing of your soul for rest 
and peace and congenial companionship. ‘Turn thou away 
from earth, there’s rest for thee in Heaven.” I believe that 
in what seems to outsiders the best and happiest life such feel- 
ings occur as often as to others less favored. Just as often. 
It belongs to humanity. The universal groan that rises day 
and night from a planet that has suffered shipwreck. I wish 
I could do something for you, something that would help you 
bear it, help you look up and look forward. 

I can only sympathize at eight hundred miles distant. Sym- 
pathy is not much. Don’t let anything shake your trust in 
God. Hold on. At evening time, it shall be light! 

I missed the twelve o’clock postman by just ten minutes. I 
will improve my outrageously long letter by an extract from a 
diary which I was reading today—Lady Granville’s Letters. 

She gives her impression of Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe 
and her daughters on their famous visit to England about 
1856, and I am spiteful enough to enjoy Lady Granville’s 
description. 

“Mrs. B. Stowe and daughters have arrived. We are very 
much amused with the young ladies, so extremely different 
from anything we ever saw before; talking so much, giving 
their opinions most decidedly, never saying ‘Goodmorning,’ 
or ‘Goodnight,’ or ‘If you please,’ or “Thank you,’ to anyone. | 
Leaning their elbows on the table at dinner. Saying ‘Ma’ at 


GOING DOWN THE VALLEY 307 


every word, knives in their mouths,—this strikes one, though I 
have discovered some good points. 

“Mrs. B. Stowe is very pleasant to listen to. She is quiet 
in manner and talk, wears the oddest little wreaths in the even- 
ing. Touch freedom, says nothing at all. Touch slavery, she 
bursts forth.” 

Mrs. Stowe as appears in these memoirs made personally 
no impression in English society while there. She infuriated 
tne whole country on her return by retailing the vile obscene 
scandal against Lord Byron told her by his crazy widow. 

All this was repaid to the Beecher family in the trial of 
Henry Ward a few years afterwards for adultery. He was the 
idol of them all, and whether guilty or not, he went to his 
grave besmirched. 

When I read the letters and memoirs of these great English 
ladies, note their conservatism, their devout adherence to the 
Church, its prayer book, collects, Holy-days, poems, works for 
sweet charity, all so saintly, so encased in prejudice and eccles- 
iasticism, such fervid love for Church services and priests, such 
passionate admiration for their own children, grand-children, 
nephews, nieces, and kinsfolk generally, so much reading of 
religious books, such love for people of the right Church, I 
am reminded of Mrs. Battle [Mrs. Kemp P. Battle]. As they 
advance toward the end of their lives, such a loosening of their 
loyalty to their own forms, such a change in their attitude to 
all who love Christ. I am deeply interested in all such displays 
of grace, and true Christian spirit unfolding as the soul ripens. 
Mrs. Battle has softened and sweetened too, most amazingly. 
I have learned to love and to admire her. There are not many 
such sterling characters, me judice. 

Dear Lucy I have not time to write less. 


Yours with love. 


ES. 


Two small quotations from letters to Mrs. Laura 
_ Phillips are both dated in October, 1902. 


Will Phillips writes that Southern professors, scholars and 
the like, are simply not in it in such a crowd as was recently 


308 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


at Princeton; are not known, not recognized, not invited, not 
handed round. . 

On the contrary the beloved Booker, Apostle of his race, 
in full academic regalia was seated on high. Will says more- 
over that President Venable, of the University of North Caro- 
lina, had the same experience, same impressions, talked it over, 
and came to the same conclusions. 

The South must stand together in its educational work and 
do its full duty with no reference to the great universities of 
the North and North West. They have no use for the South, 
no sympathy for it, and the South must just accept the situa- 
tion, at any rate for this time being. . . . 

I brought from the Library a life of Sir James Paget; 
one of England’s greatest surgeons, one of Queen Victoria’s 
family physicians. He died in 1899 at 85 years old, closing a 
noble life gently and calmly. He watched himself growing old, 
and remarks upon the symptoms. Makes the best of it. Enjoys 
all he can, to the last. “The degeneration of the body is such 
a natural process.” He observed it all with the trained keen 
eye of the scientist, repining at nothing, thankful for every- 
thing. 

Such a book is a great pleasure and solace to me in my 
old age. 

1903. 


I spent the morning going over several trunks full of 
things. Nothing makes my heart sick like coming upon relics 
of my old life in Chapel Hill. Something that recalls Mrs. 
Fetter, an apron of your Grandmother’s, some reminder of 
dear Sue Battle, or of Annie Swain. I feel sorry for my old 
books. Nobody would take them as a gift—my old friends, 
most of them disintegrating, like myself. 

Lucy, the end of life presses rather heavily upon me at 
times. It is near, for I feel many things slipping away which 
once I clung to. - The poets and the philosophers. How do we 
know about them? but the saints, we are sure of them. I can 
imagine your Grandfather in converse with Saint Paul very 
well, but not with any man or woman whose religious belief 
is nil, or hazily uncertain. 


GOING DOWN THE VALLEY 309 


You are to think of this old woman sheltered under the 
wing of her good daughter, and thanking Heaven with great 
seriousness when she lies down at night for all Heaven’s 
mercies. 

October, 1903. 
DeEar Laura: ! 


Brother Sam writes me of the death of one of his class- 
mates, in 1841, Atlas Harrison, of Raleigh, who had been in- 
mate of insane asylums North and South since a year after 
their graduation. Think of it! Sixty years. What a doom! 

A letter a month ago inclosed one from our old friend Pro- 
fessor McIver. I have written my last letter to him, without 
doubt. My dear husband’s last classmate! 

Sam’s letters of late have plainly shown that life for him 
was over. He is indifferent to passing events, men and books. 
His longest letters contain no allusion to any living man or 
woman, in his family or out of it. 

He writes of the old old days when we were children, and 
of the old old friends. ‘‘Dr. and Mrs. Mitchell, now of Para- 
dise.” ‘Governor Swain, on whom lies God’s peace.” — 


November, 1903. 


Now dear Sam has gone to join all these old friends of his. 
In some things Sam’s character was ideal. In his strength, 
benevolence, uprightness. I thank God I have had two such 
brothers as now sleep side by side in Chapel Hill. His faith 
was of the old fashion, firm. 

At the last they heard him repeating the Lord’s Biaves 
Then turning to his daughter, he said, ‘““Your Grandfather will 
be waiting in the path for me!” 

Has anyone ever known a finer character? 


Samuel Phillips died on November 18, 1903. Here 
is a bit from that same last letter to his sister, in which 
he writes his own epitaph: 


I hope the latest memory of me may be by some fire- 
light in the cabin of some humble old acquaintance, white or 
black, who shall have outlived all his generation, and every now 


310 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


and then will recall some incident of his early days, distorted, 
and unreal, which at the end will result in an attempt to iden- 
tify the spectre as “one of them Chapel Hill folks.” Then, 
“T mostly forget the name, It was Phillips, maybe Sam!’ Then 
some morning this old relic will be gone to join his past, and 
my name will go with him into final oblivion. 


But through all this reminiscence, Mrs. Spencer 
keeps a hold on the younger generation. Here is a bit 
of letter, written this same year to the daughter of an 
old friend who had never seen, but who knew well by 
tradition, her mother’s old friend, and who impulsively 
wrote her a Christmas letter: 

December 29, 1903. 
DEAR: 


I am much pleased that you took it into your head to write 
me a long and pleasant letter for Christmas. I do thank you 
for writing just as you did, in the confidence that your mother’s 
old friend would be glad to hear from you, that she would feel 
complimented! 

I sat some time with your letter in my hand, summoning up 
the past, figures, scenes, incidents—fifty-sixty years ago. 

If ever | meet your mother’s spirit in that other life, I 
shall, if I am myself, as here, tell her about your writing to me. 

How I have regretted that I allowed our correspondence to 
drop. She would have kept it up, for she was more persistent 
and efficient about everything than I was. 


To Miss Margaret Mitchell: 


October, 1903. 
DEAR MARGARET: 


I like to think of you, walking among your flowers, stoop- 
ing to attack your weeds. Here I am, looking over old letters 
papers, etc. I find such an accumulation of memoranda as dis- 
tresses me. I hate to burn them. I equally hate to leave them 
for other people to toss around and finally set fire to, as old 
rubbish. 


FIVE 


CORNELIA PHILLIPS SPENCER AT SEVENTY 


312 OLD (DAYS IN CHAPEL BI 


What a comfort if one had a great old Norman Castle, 
with uninhabitable rooms, holes, corners, chests, hiding-places 
where this correspondence could lie quiet two or three centuries, 
and then be discovered and brought out and viewed with rever- 
ence; used by historical antiquarians with delight and wonder! 

Did you ever look over the Paston Letters, written during 
the York and Lancaster civil wars by a country gentleman’s 
wife to her husband in Parliament? There is really mighty 
little in ’em,—and so I feel some accomplished scholar might 
say of my letters—‘rubbish.” | 

On the whole Margaret, it is far from exhilarating work 
to look over old letters. You and Sam and Sister Laura are 
the only friends I have who would understand or be interested. - 

In the year 2003 they might be invaluable, but I cannot wait 
to see them appraised. 

I have bundles of letters from gentlemen which would 
be eagerly scanned—from the men of the Battle family, from 
Vance, from the Binghams, from Mr. Paul Cameron, Gover- 
nor Graham, Governor Swain, from Brother Sam—yYes these 
would all be read in 2000, but I cannot wait. 

’ Brother Sam destroyed all his correspondence several years — 
ago. So did Brother Charles before his death. My Father 
had few correspondents, Presbyterian ministers, mostly. No 
one would want to read their closely written lucubrations. I 
have burned cart-loads of letters since I came here. 

What I now value chiefly are bits out of the lives of my 
old Chapel Hill neighbors. . . . What you wrote me about 
Vanderford, the blacksmith, for instance, and how he jilted 
Betsy Dyer, your housekeeper. Mary Shaw was the person 
who told me about that affair long ago. Where did Betsy 
Dyer come from? 

There were so many of those forlorn single women, 
perched here and there in old Chapel Hill. 

I want to talk to Brother Sam about them. June does not 
care but he would. You are now the only persons I resort to in 
such gossip. Laura is a new comer compared to you and me. 
She cannot be appealed to. What does she know about Van- 
derford, or John Winfree, or Polly Roach? Or Dr. Yancey, 


GOING DOWN THE VALLEY 313 


or tailor McGee? Her mind on such topics is a blank. Poor 
Laura! 

Shall you and I go to visit Mrs. Vanderford, aged ninety- 
four? You would not go. You do not love old women! 


Another letter to Miss Margaret Mitchell may be 
quoted. The first is just before, this one some time after 
her brother Sam’s death. 


DEAR MARGARET: | 


I am thinking today that old folks, men and women, are a 
good deal in the way. So many of our friends here are ham- 
pered by the care due to old aunties and grandmammas and 
they do live to be very old hereabouts. 

Old Mrs. Woods in Chapel Hill writes me she is helpless 
as to moving, but can read her Bible without glasses, while 
Mrs. John Carr has them write me that she can go as she 
pleases, but cannot see to do anything. 

June is busy picking up the loose ends of her social life, 
calling on friends returned from mountains, sea-side, or 
foreign lands. I call it melancholy however, when a woman 
comes home from a tour in England, or Italy, and can talk 
of nothing but servants and their vile ways, about the impossi- 
bility of getting a decent one, and the dreadful necessity of 
doing your own work. What will these ladies talk about in 
the next world? 

Americans do not seem willing to deny themselves anything 
that shall lessen labor, or exertion of any sort. Here in the 
new house are buttons, knobs, rods all about. I am afraid to 
touch ’em. I creep upstairs and downstairs and hold tight to 
the banisters, and step as if on eggs over the rugs which lie 
on these slippery floors to trip me up. 

When you get old you find yourself doing many queer 
things. I do get so hungry at times for some word of affection 
from some of my kin North or South, that I am ready to sit 
down andcry. These New England people, with all their many 
excellencies, are not warm-hearted. Unless there is confidence, 
friendship dies out. 


314 OLD DAYS IN CHAPPED ATO 


Now dear old friend I will release you. I read the letters 
you sent of dear Brother Charles to you, with a swelling heart. 
He wrote too long letters. Too many words in them, but how 
Kinde 

Let me stop right now! .. . 


Writing a few months later to Mrs. Johnston, in 
1904, Mrs. Spencer anticipates the death of this old 
friend, Miss Mitchell, also: 


. . . It has been a long winter, and a sad one to me, and 
the spring is not likely to lessen the sadness, for I am in 
daily expectation of hearing of the death of the only remaining 
companion of my childhood and youth, my own and my 
brother’s lifelong friend, Miss Margaret Mitchell, now sole 
survivor of Dr. Mitchell’s family, as I am of my father’s ;— 
a woman of highest character, and one of the excellent ones; 
my old friend, my good comrade, what shall I do without her 
warm sympathy, her clear good sense, her uncompromising 
faith in the unseen. Your husband Esquire Johnston must re- 
member something of her, though it has been thirty years since 
she and her sister, Mrs. Grant, left Chapel Hill. She is sup- 
posed to be in her last illness. Since Mrs. Grant’s death she has 
lived in her own house in Statesville, North Carolina, a useful, 
secluded life, hampered of late years by cataract in both eyes. 

Her oldest sister, Mrs. Richard Ashe, died in California 
within a week or two of my Brother Sam. She has had little 
to live for since. When she wrote to me of my brother's 
death, what she said was, ‘““And Sam departed in peace. I 
knew it would be so.”’ | 

How many things death takes away from us! 

I have just finished reading Morley’s life of Gladstone. 
He quotes some lines written by a Greek poet 540 years before 
Christ, on the death of an old friend, which are as fresh and 
sweet in his translation as they were 2500 years ago: 


“They told me Heraclitus, they told me you were dead, 
They brought me bitter news to hear, and bitter tears to shed. 
I wept when I remembered how often you and I 


GOING DOWN THE VALLEY was 


Have tired the sun with talking, and sent him down the sky, 
But still your pleasant words, your thrilling tones awake, 
For Death he taketh all away, but these he cannot take.” 


The last year of her life—she died on March 11, 1908 
—Mrs. Spencer’s thoughts were quietly fixed on the 
change she was expecting, even with eagerness, as she 
grew weaker and weaker. Her mind remained perfectly 
clear until the last dying stupor, and her diary receives 
its daily record far into the February preceding, but she 
complains of excessive weakness. Never any pain. A 
few entries from her journal copied here may show how 
busy her thoughts were with the subject, how she 
marched breast forward to meet her end. It is the privi- 
lege of age to feast on memory, but she, while remem- 
bering, was also adventuring into the unknown. 

_ These paragraphs are taken from the journals of 
the last two years of her life: 


I seem to live in my memories, and resort to them when I 
feel stagnant instead of taking any lively interest in the ocean 
of life that is surging around me. 

Some persons in Chapel Hill have sent me copies of the last 
University Record. It hurts my feelings dreadfully to see June 
and Lee take no notice of them. They are entirely weaned 
from Chapel Hill. I am not. 

I suppose the process of change is really going on always, 
only we do not notice it till years after, like the gradual changes 
of the forest. 

I have been troubled lately with wakefulness at night, and 
have comforted the night watches by repeating to myself in 
whispers many of the familiar old hymns. I often hum them 
over at my sewing. I love that old tune of Silver Street. 

Coleridge said, just ten days before his death, that scenes 
of his childhood and youth, long forgotten, came floating 
‘round his mind and memory like fragrant airs from the spice 
islands. Perhaps it is so with all old people towards the end. 


316 OLD DAYS TNVGH ARE Rin 


They say the appearance of his room grows strange to a 
dying man, when he looks upon it on his last morning, and 
knows it will confront him no more. He sees effects, things 
that never struck him before. I think this is true. 

Chapel Hill is always an unique place. Its great trees have 
stood for a hundred and fifty years. It had in consequence 
of its many undisturbed years of sun and shadow many char- 
acteristics not often seen. 


Just one more letter, a very late one, written to Mrs. 
Charles Phillips about Commencement Day, 1907, will 
give an old woman’s farewell to life in her very own 
words: 


June, 1907. 
My Drar Otp BRIDESMAID: 


Thank you for your remembrance of me as a bride 52 
years ago. You and I are all now. Margaret is gone. June 
brought me a lovely Cape Jessamine for remembrance, which 
has perfumed my room for two days, and this morning brought 
me a box full of the same from South Carolina. 

Fifty-two years ago. I can still see some of the faces at 
the wedding. I do not recall any incidents of importance, but 
I can summon up the faces of fifty-sixty years ago. Cannot 
you? 

Nobody need to think I want to return to my old home 
and see the changes. No no! “It is not now as it hath been 
of yore!” 

Dear Old Bridesmaid, friend and sister, the best a woman 
ever had—may our friendship continue on, through this next 
life! 

This month was Commencement day at the University of 
North Carolina. My heart warmed so as it turned to the 
memory of it. Faces long since hidden rise up to me from 
under the grass, rise into view once more. And I always end 
with a prayer for the University. Do not you? 

I long so at times for a chat with some old-timer and sym- 
pathizer, some one to help me arrange my ideas, trim up my 


GOING DOWN THE VALLEY 317 


prejudices, and dust my mind generally. I miss Charles and 
Sam and Margaret, and I shrink into my forlorn lonely old 
self once more. 

I have such tenderness of feeling towards old Chapel Hill, 
and the old folks now disappeared. They did what they could 
in their day. Do you ever meditate on the thought of how 
entirely the men and women of the preceding generation have 
gone? Nothing left but a house or two, but the wild flowers 
still survive. The liverworts, the houstonias, yellow jasmine, 
and white fringe tree, the rhododendron and the kalmia flour- 
ish in their old haunts just the same. They were there before 
Columbus came, they are there now. 

A soft autumn day brings many memories of woods, fields, 
chinquapins, nuts, and wild-grapes, and the companions of 
childhood, and even of later age; for many a long tramp did I 
take all through my sixth decade. I think of the old North 
Carolina woods, fields, and highways. How silent, how soli- 
tary and how restful. Blessed is the heart that can be satis- 
fied with the life they offer, and be willing to end life there. 

I have no plans whatever, and only one desire for this life, 
to be let alone, to be allowed to meditate. I am withering, 
wrinkling, shrinking out of life. Sometimes I find a relic of 
Margaret. I stop to think of her, and envy her her transit. 
So quickly, so safely! 

Where is she? What is she, and what is she doing? Vain 
questions which you will one day be asking about me, and get 
no reply. 

Where are my dear brothers? My father and my husband, 
four good men and true who have blessed my life? 

Perhaps it is but the old cry of humanity for rest and peace 
and permanency that seizes us, a hunger of the heart. I faint 
with it often. 

I will say right here, that it is a great help in weaning one 
from life that you have lived to be pretty much alone in it. 

After the seventy-fifth milestone, it is like walking in a 
battlefield. Where are they all? 


318 OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


I always recall my ever dear husband, still fondly remem- 
bered, as a young man. I wonder if he would know this wrink- 
led old woman? 

Two old United States Senators from Alabama, who died 
lately, were contemporaries of my husband. If he had 
lived. . . . But why think of it? 

Because I never can forget. 

Dear Laura, I think it very much to be expected that you 
and your Great-grandsons should not have many common 
topics for conversation. 

You will be satisfied with looking at them, seeing how well 
they appear, and feeling thankful that they promise so well, 
while they will retain an affectionate remembrance of their 
Great-grandmother, whom they knew so little. 

As to their being so serious. . . 

How could they laugh and be fall among such elderly 
folk? We must let neither our children nor our grand-children 
make our last years unhappy. 

Dear Laura, it is a resource to my mind to have you to say 
things to. If you were not so severely good and virtuous I 
would say a good many more things than I do, but I am afraid 
of your casting me forth. 


“Ah no, the visions of the past, 
Sustain the heart in feeling, 
Life as it is—our changeful life, 
With friends and kindred dealing.”’ 
Your old Sister, 
Con bans 


Mrs. Spencer’s remains were brought South. Her 
funeral was held from the little Presbyterian Church 
her father had built, which is now superseded by a fine 
new one. She lies buried in the Chapel Hill cemetery 
with her kindred. 

Much was written and said about memorials to her, 
immediately after her death, and there was a memorial 
tablet erected to her in the Memorial Hall at Chapel Hill. 


GOING DOWN THE VALLEY Be, 


The great World War and its tremendous changes 
and interests intervened, and so the trunk full of papers 
remained unexplored for longer than it otherwise would 
have done. But hers is a character which can never be 
repeated, and a service which must not be forgotten. 
The village of Chapel Hill, with its institution, is her 
monument and her epitaph. And so let it be. 


" ys iy > te 
ABN) Hs 


Se 


INDEX 


Adrain, Professor Robert, 8. 

Alabama, in the fifties, 62, 64. 

Anderson, Julia, 19. 

Anderson, Walker, 19. 

Argo, Thomas, 159, 162, 168, 186. 

Ashe, John, 192. 

Ashe, Mrs. Richard, see 
Mitchell, Mary. 

Ashley, Samuel S., 162. 

Atkins, General Smith B., 86; calls 
on Governor Swain, 94; marriage, 


Aycock, Governor Charles B., 197. 


under 


Badger, Judge William, 25. 

Barbee, Mrs. A. S., 188, 289. 

Barham, Dave, 46. 

Barham, Will, 160, 161, 167. 

“Barlow, Billy,” 168. 

Barringer, Daniel M., 204, 205. 

Battle, President Kemp P., 108; 
plan for Reconstruction, 116; let- 
ter to Swain, 124; to Mrs. Spen- 
cer, 190; in Chapel Hill, 224; 
chosen president, 226, 228; Mrs. 
Spencer’s opinion, 233. 

Battle, Mrs. Kemp P., 233, 307. 

Battle, Laura, see under Phillips, 
Mrs. Charles. 

Battle, Nellie, 227, 228. 

Battle, Sue, 308. 

Battle, Judge William H., 43, 57, 
124, 204; letter to, 218. 

“Ben, Uncle,” see under Caldwell, 
Benjamin. 

Bingham, Major Robert, 
female education, 235. 
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 170. 

Bourgevin, M., 19. 
Brewer, Professor Fisk 
156, 162, 166, 195, 200, 18" 

Brewer, Miss. 170. 

Bridgers, Reo 55: 

Bryan, Captain Goode, 110. 
Buchanan, President James, 121. 
Bullock, Lucy, 179. 


letter on 


152, 


ea Colonel W. H. &, 141, 

155. 

Burns, Robert, 150. 

Butt, Martha Haines, Letsure 
Hours, 90. 


Caldwell, Benjamin, old family ser- 
vant, 21, 125, 141, 219. 

Caldwell, Dilsey, old family ser- 
Vanity 2h Lis 25) 14AT IO i 2bo: 
284, 287; illness, 299; death, 300. 

Caldwell, President Joseph, first 
president, 2; selects professor of 
mathematics, 8; purchases in Eu- 
rope, 11; “Carlton Letters,” 24; 
second marriage, 26; death, 27. 

Caldwell, Mrs. Joseph, 11, 26. 

Caldwell, Tod R., 204. 

Caldwell, Wilson, 192. 

Cameron, Benehan, 253. 

Cameron, Duncan, 227. 

een Patil 222,224,253); 258; 

9. 

Carlyle, Thomas, 150. 

Carr, John, 45, 162, 289. 

Carr, Mrs. John, 163, 166, 212, 249, 
250, 2515) 289, 313, 

Carr, Julian, 45, 157, 174, 212. 

Carter, David, 204, 205. 

Caudle, Sally, 170. 

Cave, Jane, see under Guthrie, Mrs. 
Hug h B. 

Grane Hill, in 1826, 16; in the for- 
ties, 34; stone walls, 41; churches 
and townsfolk, 43-47, 288 ; during 
the war, 85, 87; dispersion, 143; 
poverty, 213; in 1876, 233. 

Charlotte, in the 1780's, 276. 

Cheshire, Bishop Joseph B., 250. 

Cleveland, President Grover, inaug- 
uration, 292. 

Closs, William, 187. 

Cole, Hattie and Kattie, 188. 

Couch, Darius N., 87. 

eae Leroy, “Old Couch,” 218, 

0. 


Craig, Annie, 178. 


Davie, General William R., 1. 
Davis, President Jefferson, 83, 86, 

87, 88, 89, 104, 108, 109, 114. 
Davis, Wash, 199. 


Deems, Charles F., 43, 103, 125, 
242. 
Dickson, “Friend,” 180, 186. 


“Dilsey, Aunt,” 
Dilsey. 


see under Caldwell, 


322 


Dorland, Charles J., 186, 187. 
Dyer, Betsy, 312 


Edwards, Ben, 175. 
Ellis, John W., 32. 


Fetter, Fred, 125. 

Fetter, Professor Manuel, 43, 126, 
142, 145, 157. 

Fetter, Mrs. Manuel, 54, 99, 134, 
135, 145, 308. 

Fetter, Mattie, 134. 

Fox, Oliver, 86, 95. 


Gaston, Judge William, 25. 

Guiteau, Charles J., 283 

Graham, John, 253. 

Graham, Governor William A., 98, 
ee 107, 194, 204; letter fram, 
18 


Grant, Mrs. Eliza Mitchell, 73, 237, 
314 


Granville, Countess, Letters, 1810- 
Green, Mercer, 43. 
Guthrie, Mrs. Hugh B., 90, 249. 


Guthrie, Colonel J. J., 110, 123, 215. 


Hale, E. J., 102, 105, 108, 194. 

Hall, Mary, 53. 

Hampton, General Wade, 86, 87, 110. 

Hargrave, Jesse, merchant, 45. 

Harrison, Atlas, 309 

Harrisse, Henry, 19, 149. 

Hawks, Francis Lister, 19. 

Haywood, Burke, 201, 204, 213. 

Hearne, Sally, 217. 

Hedrick, Professor Benjamin S., 
148. 

Henderson, Wiley, 192. 

echt Professor Nicholas M., 17, 
2 


Hentz, Mrs. Nicholas M., 25, 26. 

Hepburn, Professor Andrew D., 
114, 159. 

Hilliard, Nancy, students boarding 
house, 44, 173; hardships, 156, 184, 
212) (213) "2lo5)\ in) Raleigh) |) 202! 
206; death, 216. 

Hogan, Mr., 215. 

Hoke, General Robert F., 85, 110. 

Holden, Governor William W., de- 
mands peace, 75; delegation tri- 
umphant, 89; intermediary, 115; 
provisional governor, 116; nomi- 
nation, 118; not invited to Com- 
mencement, 137; elected governor, 


OLD DAYS IN CHAPEL HILL 


141, 147; Holden and the Univer- 
sity, 142, 172; political fickleness, 
149; character, 147, 150; recruits 
troops, 189; impeachment, 191. 
Holt, Colonel Thomas M., 251. 
Hooper, Betsy, 19. 
poop Professor John DeB., 226, 


Hooper, Mrs. John DeB., 232, 250. 

Hooper, Joseph C., 22. 

Hooper, Mrs. William, see under 
Caldwell, Mrs. Joseph. 

Hooper, eu William, 17, 26, 

’ ’ 233. 

Hooper, Mrs. William, 233. 

Hopkins, Bishop John Henry, Scrip- 
tural, Ecclesiastical and Histori- 
cal View of Slavery, 92. 

Horace, translations, 279. 

Horton, George, 47. 

Hubbard, Professor Fordyce M., 44, 
159, 166, 179, 188. 

Hubbard, Mrs. Fordyce, 99, 145, 179, 
188, 189. 

Hubbard, Mattie, 180, 189. 

Huntington, William, 176. 

Hutchings, Belle, 179. 


Jenkins, J. W., 166. 

Jennings, Mrs. 289. 

Johnson, President Andrew, 20, 114, 
117, 118, 124, 137, 147. 

Johnston, Charles W., 256, 289. 

Johnston, Mrs. Charles W., 290; 
letters to, 290, 314. 

Johnston, General Joseph E., 85, 
86, 87, 107. 

Jones, William, 32, 45, 73. 


Kerr, Alice, 169, 227. 

Kerr, Professor W. C., 165, 169, 
203, 227. 

Kilpatrick, General Hugh J., 86. 

Kimberly, Beck, 124. 

Kimberly, John, 226. 

King, Nat, 219. 

Kirk, Holden’s commander, 189. 

Ku Klux Klan, 174, 175, 189. 


Lacy, Mrs. Drury, letter to, 219. 

Lane, Aunt Dicey, 156 

Lassiter, Robert W., 199. 

Last Ninety Days of the War, quot- 
ed, 82; idea of book, 103, 106; 
Vance correspondence, 102-11; its 
fairness, 111. 

Lee, General Fitzhugh, 294. 


INDEX 


625 


Lee, General Robert E., 83. 

Leisure Hours, by Martha Haines 
Butt, 90. 

Lewis, Margaret, 180. 

Lincoln, President Abraham, 111. 

Loder, Mary, 229. 

Long & McCauley, 213. 

Longstreet, Judge Augustus B., 25. 

Lossing, Benjamin, 171, 175. 

Love, Professor James Lee, 282. 

Love, Mrs. James Lee, see under 
Spencer, Julia James. 

Lucas, Frances, see under Phillips, 
Mrs. Samuel Field. 


McGuffey, W. H., 194. 

Mclver, Professor Alexander, ap- 
pointment, 152; professorship, 
162, 164, 174, 186; visits Mrs. 
Spencer, , 156, 172; State Sup’t. of 
Public Instruction, 196; summons 
meeting, 203, 205; writes Mrs. 
Spencer, 309. 

Mclver, President Charles D., 197. 

McPheeters, William, 13. 

Mahew, Sam, 192. 

Mallet, Baker, 74. 

Mallett, Caroline, 179. 

Mallett, John, 217. 

Manning, John, 224. 

Marey, Charles, 19. 

Martin, Edward, 182. 

Martling, Professor James A., 152, 
171, 173, 192, 193, 195. 

Mason, J. P., 90, 167, 292, 305. 

Maverick, George, 141. 

Maverick, Will, 141. 

Maximilian, Emperor, 117. 

Merritt, A. Hayward, 187. 

Mickle, Andrew, merchant, 45, 175, 
245,250, 

Mickle, Lizzie, 215. 

Middagh, Elizabeth, 6. 

Mitchell, Elisha, teaching at Uni- 
versity, 8, 17; trip to Chapel Hill, 
9; tastes, 12; family, 18; educa- 
tion and character, 24; educa- 
tional theories, 28; builds stone 
wall, 41; death, 143. 

Mitchell, Mrs. Elisha, journey 
south, 9; conducts Sunday School, 
11; furniture, 21; daughters’ edu- 
cation, 28. 

Mitchell, Eliza, see under Grant, 
Mrs. Eliza 

Mitchell, Ellen, see under Summer- 
ell) Mrs. J.J. 


Mitchell, Margaret, early educa- 
tion, 28, 30; illness, 314; letters 
to, 18, 310, 313. 

Mitchell, Mary, early education, 28, 
30; later life, 238; death, 314. 

Moore, Bartholomew. F., 203, 204. 

Moore, Duncan, 132. 


Negroes, of Chapel Hill, 113, 114, 
123, 168. 
Nettleton, evangelist, 12. 

Newton, John, merchant, 45, 46, 53. 

Newton, Mrs. John, 183. 

Normal School, see under North 
Carolina College for Women. 

North, Eliza, letter to, 125, 127. 

North Carolina College for ‘Women, 
197, 295. 

North Carolina Presbyterian, 155, 
188, 268. 

North Carolina, School History of, 
see under School History of 
North Carolina. 

North Carolina, University of, see 
Wier University of North Caro- 
ina 

Norwood, J. W., 184. 

“November, Dr.,” 46, 174, 215. 

Nunn, Mrs. Elizabeth, 44, 


Olmsted, Denison, 3, 8. 
Owen, Mary, 54 


Page, Walter Hines, 243, 303. 
hence James, Memoirs and Letters, 
08 


Parham, Mrs., 62. 

Patrick, Professor David S., 152, 
156, 169, 170, 187, 195, 200, 202. 

Patrick, Mrs. David S., 167, 171. 

Patterson, H. H., 250, 289. 

Pearson, Richmond M., 205. 

Peele, W. J., 225. 

Pen and Ink Sketches of the Uni- 
versity, 158, 169, 176, 222, 265. 
Phillips, Professor Charles, child- 
hood, 17; education, 32; marriage, 
57; goes to Davidson, 144; re- 
turns to Chapel Hill, 226; illness, 
228, 240, 296; in Washington, 
233; death, 297; letters to, 162, 

BF 20 1879197, 20S 216,292: 
Phillips, Mrs. Charles, marriage, 57; 
letters to, 62, 64, 136, 159, 163, 
164, 170, 173, 176, 178, 212, 316. 
Phillips, Cornelia, see under Spen- 
cer, Cornelia P. 


324 


Phillips, Cornelia’ (“Cornie”), 210, 
283, 290, 296. 

Phillips, Professor James, early life, 
3; marriage, 6; moves to Chapel 
Hill, 8; described, 12; licensed 
to preach 13; educates children, 
30; builds Presbyterian Church, 
43; letters to daughter, 63, 70; 
death, 135, 143. 

Phillips, Mrs. James, ancestry, 6; 
conducts Sunday School, 11; goes 
North, 123; returns, 137; letter 
to June, 221; old age, 234, 243; 
death, 258. 

Phillips, John, 210, 211. 

Phillips, Lucy, see under Russell, 
Mrs. Li/P. 

Phillips, Mary, see under Verner, 
Mrs. M. P. 

Phillips, Richard, 3. 

Phillips, Samuel, 5, 9. 

Phillips, Hon. Samuel Field, child- 
hood, 17, 22; education, 32; mar- 
riage, 57; moves to Raleigh, 138; 
member of the House, 190; Soli- 
citor General, 206; at mother’s 
funeral, 259, 260; second marriage, 
299; retirement, 305; death, 309; 
letter to, 288. 

Phillips, Mrs. Samuel Field, 57, 206, 
233; letter to, 140. 

(Ga Professor William B., 232, 
30 


Polk, President James K., 21. 

Polk, Bishop Leonidas, 37. 

Pool, John, 151, 289. 

Pool, President Solomon, descrip- 
tion, 151; plans for University, 
160, 162; president, 165, 170, 172, 
176, 188, 196, 201; hostility, 202; 
wishes to leave, 224; death, 223. 

Purefoy, George W., 187. 


Raleigh Standard, 75. 

Ransom, Matthew W., 204, 289, 294. 

Rodman, William B., 165. 

Ruffin, Judge Thomas, 117. 

Russell, Mrs. Lucy Phillips, 159, 
200, 220, 242; letter to, 304. 


Saunders, Colonel William, 189. 

School History of North Carolina, 
265, 266, 295 

Scott, Betty, 98. 

Scott, Julia, 54. 

Seward, William H., 137, 138. 

Shaler, N. S., The Individual, 146. 


OLD DAYS INIGH APE: Hilt 


Shaw, Mary, 52, 54, 55, 312. 

Sherman, General William T., 83, 
84, 87, 107, 111. 

Sickles, General Daniel E., 137. 

pei Professor Frederick W., 
254. 

Skinner, Stephen, 74. 

Smith, Mary, 258, 289. 

Smyth, J. F. D., Tour in the United 
States of America, 275. 

Snow, William B., 221. 

Spear, Maria, 258. 

Spencer, Cornelia Phillips, birth, 8; 
childhood, 17, 22; education, 28, 
33; girlhood, 47; engagement, 58; 
marriage, 59; in Alabama, 61; 
daughter born, 65; widowhood, 
69; leaves Clinton, 71; deafness, 
72, 77; teaches school, 74; opin- 
ion of southern literature, 90; 
friendship with prominent men, 
101; writing of Last Ninety Days, 
102-12; goes North, 135; takes 
boarders, 140; writes for North 
Carolina Presbyterian, 155; name 
given to N. C. C. W. building, 
197, 295; fiftieth birthday, 222; 
thanked by Trustees, 241; dinner 
for convicts, 249; leaves Chapel 
Hill, 260; summer visits, 262; 
literary tastes, 263, 270; writings, 
265; School History of N. C., 
265, 266, 295; Young Lady's 
Column, 268, 276; on Woman’s 
Suffrage, 273; translations of Ho- 
race, 279; moves to Cambridge, 
282, 300; at Guiteau’s trial, 283; 
receives LL.D., 302; life in Cam- 
bridge, 302; death, 315, 318. 

Spencer, James Munroe, at Univer- 
sity, 58; character, 59; illness, 65; 
death, 69. 

Spencer, Julia James, birth, 65; ill- 
ness, 75; Christmas in ’65, 118; 
at Peace Institute, 221; teaches, 
242; Cooper Union, 244; mar- 
riage, 261, 282, 287; letters to, 
206, 218, 246, 286. 

Stedman, Major Charles M., 87. 

Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 306. 

Strudwick, F., 189. 

Summerell, Dr. J. J., 52. 

Summerell, Mrs. J. J. (Ellen Mit- 
chell), early education, 28; mar- 
riage, 49, 52; death, 296; letters 
tOy 21 AON S2 1ST 230 cad 

Swain, Annie, 54, 308. 


INDEX 


325 


Swain, President David Lowrie, 37; 
elected president of University, 
38; character 39-42; writes to 
Mrs. Spencer, 64; journeys dur- 
ing the War, 80, 84, 113; daugh- 
ter’s marriage, 99, 169; loss of 
power, 100; Last Ninety Days, 
102-5; 107-9; impressions of Pres- 
ident Johnson, 117, 121; resigna- 
tion discussed, 132; makes ad- 
dress, 137; dismissed by Holden, 
142; death, 143; remains brought 
to Raleigh, 176, 181; eulogized by 
Vance, 242. 

Swain, Mrs. David Lowrie, 37, 42, 
132, 155, 160; letters to, 155, 161, 
168, 175, 177, 191, 201, 213, 226. 

Swain, Eleanor, meets General At- 
kins, 94; engagement, 95; wed- 
ding, 98, 169; visits Chapel Hill, 
131 


Swain, Jurdon, 123. 
Swain, Wilson, 161. 


Taylor, Mrs. Alexander, 250. 

Taylor, Hon. Hannis, 34, 74, 126, 
293, 294, 295. 

Taylor, James, 188. 

Taylor, Jane, 19. 

Taylor, Nancy, 19. 

Thompson, Mrs. 
287. 

Thompson, Susie, 290. 

Tourgée, A. W., Fool’s Errand, 
190. 

Turner, Josiah, 102, 158, 159. 


Selina, 182, 262, 


University of North Carolina, fa- 
culty in 1826, 17; in wartime, 78, 
89, 99; after the war, 115, 123, 
126, 139; faculty resigns, 142; 
after the dispersion, 147; reopen- 
ing, 151, 156, 164, 187. 188, 189 ; 
again closed, 195; plans for reor- 
ganization, 185, 200, 203; condi- 
tion of property, 215, 225; bill for 
reopening, 221; second opening, 
Zen: frst Summer School, 243; 


land sold, 253; gives Mrs. Spen- 
cer LU Dey 30t: 

Utley, Benton, 206. 

Utley, Mrs. Benton, 202, 213, 217. 

Utley, Foster, 289. 

Utley, Nancy, 53. 


Vance, David, 226, 227. 

Vance, Governor Zebulon B., 78; 
described, 101; Vance and Last 
Ninety Days of the War, 102-11, 
115; letters, 153, 184, 244; fails 
to give speech, 227; eulogizes 
Swain, 242; anecdote, 257; sec- 
ond marriage, 258; letter to, 199. 

Vanderford, Mr., 312. 

Venable, Abram, letter to, 192. 

Venable, Professor F. P., 308. 

Vermeule, Cornelius, 6. 

Vermeule, Julia, see under Phillips, 
Mrs, James. 

Verner, Mrs. Mary Phillips, 133, 
231; letter to, 66. 


Washington, Booker, 308. 

Washington, George, 7. 

Washington, Mary, 54. 

Watchman, The, 102. 

Watson, Ann, nv 160, 165. 

Watson, Jim, 219. 

Watson, Jones, 174, 202, 288. 

Wheeler, General Joseph, 85, 86, 87, 
110. 

White, John, 174. 

Wilcox, General Cadmus M., 117. 

Wiley, Calvin H., 32, 194. 

Williams, Bettie, 289. 

Williams, Matilda, 141, 284. 

Williams, Sally, 140, 141, 284. 

Wigah Alexander, 125; letter to, 
26. 

Woodbury, Levi, 289, 290. 

Woods, Mr., 166. 

Woods, Mrs., 98, 313. 

Worth, Governor Jonathan, 118, 137. 


Yancey, Charles, 45. 
Yancey, Lemuel, 217, 241, 259. 


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